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SPONSOR: |
Payne |
DATE TYPED: |
|
HB |
|
||
SHORT TITLE: |
Metro Court
Judges Retirement |
SB |
7/aSJC |
||||
|
ANALYST: |
Smith |
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REVENUE
Estimated Revenue |
Subsequent Years Impact |
Recurring or
Non-Rec |
Fund Affected |
|
FY03 |
FY04 |
|
|
|
(4,101.0) |
|
|
Non-Recurring |
Magistrate
Retirement Fund |
4,101.0 |
|
|
Non-Recurring |
Judicial
Retirement Fund |
(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Revenue Decreases)
Responses
Received From
Public
Employees Retirement Association (PERA)
SUMMARY
Synopsis of SJC Amendment
The
Senate Judiciary Committee amendment to Senate Bill 7 corrects statutory
references on pages 2 and 6 and clarifies that the judicial retirement fund is
comprised of money received from docket and jury fees of metropolitan courts, district
courts, the court of appeals and the supreme court, employer and employee
contributions and any investment earning on fees and contributions.
Synopsis of Original Bill
Senate Bill 7 amends the Judicial Retirement Act
and Magistrate Retirement Act to place metropolitan court judges under the
judicial retirement plan. SB7 will only
affect current and future judges in metropolitan court and the current district
judges that have service credit as a metropolitan judge. It will not affect retired judges. SB 7 will convert all current magistrate
service credit for the affected judges to judicial service credit.
Significant
Issues
The Judicial Retirement
Act has an “early retirement” provision that allows judges with 18 years or
more of service credit to retire and begin receiving their pension if they are
50 years of age or older. The Magistrate
Retirement Act provides that magistrate and metropolitan court judges can
retire at any age with 24 years of service credit or at age 60 with fifteen
years of service credit.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
PERA reports that the court administrator for
the
However, the actuaries have repeatedly warned
that there are structural problems with the judicial plan and this proposal
will aggravate the situation. Benefits are pay related and over 57 percent of
the contributions to the judicial plan will be from docket fees after the
proposed transfer of metropolitan court judges.
The actuaries recommended converting the entire contribution system to a
pay related method instead of funding the plan from docket or jury fees. Currently, the metropolitan and district
judges contribute 5 percent of salary and their employers contribute 9 percent
of salary to their respective retirement funds.
Additionally, $38 from each civil docket fee is contributed for the district
judges and $25 for magistrate judges, plus $10 of every jury fee.
OTHER SUBSTANTIVE
ISSUES
Metropolitan court
judges are required by law to be attorneys and occasionally they move from the
metropolitan court to the district court.
When a metropolitan judge becomes a district judge, they change
retirement plans. Currently, the
metropolitan judge’s service credit earned under the Magistrate Retirement Act
can be added to their judicial service credit to qualify for the eighteen years
necessary to qualify for early retirement under the Judicial Retirement
Act. However, the magistrate component
of retirement does not commence until the judge turns 60 years of age. SB 7 will also allow the metropolitan court
judge’s “final average salary” to be calculated under the Judicial Retirement
Act.
SS/yr/ls/njw