Senate Bill S8143

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S8143

SPONSOR: JACKSON
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the retirement and social security law, in relation to
the refund of additional member contributions of certain persons who
cease to be members of the age fifty-seven retirement program for
certain New York city members

 
PURPOSE:

To ensure that EMT and Paramedics members of the EMT who made additional
member contributions will be entitled to a refund

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 would amend paragraph 12 of subdivision f of section 604-d of
the retirement and social security law, to provide that EMT and Paramed-
ics members of the EMT 25-year early retirement program who made addi-
tional member contributions during the time that they were members of
the chapter 96 program will be entitled to a refund of those chapter 96
              

additional member contributions.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

The EMT 25-year early retirement program was enacted in chapter 577 of
the Laws of 2000 (see retirement and social security law section 604e).
A number of EMTs and Paramedics who elected to join the new 25-year
program had been members of the chapter 96 retirement program. While
members of the chapter 96 program, they had paid additional member
contributions ("AMCs") for the purpose of establishing their eligibility
for the retirement benefits of that program. When they joined the EMT
25-year program, they were required to pay a different set of additional
member contributions in order to be eligible to receive the retirement
benefits of the EMT 25-year program. They were not given credit for
prior AMCs they had paid in connection with their participation in the
chapter 96 program and those payments were not refunded to them, even
though the benefits of the chapter 96 program were no longer available
to them after they joined the new 25-year retirement program. In
essence, they simply lost those chapter 96 AMCs. The chapter 96 AMCs
were then superfluous to their retirement expectations and entitlements.

There is no justification for the failure to return these superfluous
contributions to the EMT members who migrated from the chapter 96
program to the EMT 25-year retirement program. When chapter 96 was
enacted, actuaries determined the level of AMCs that would be required
to sustain the program. In doing so, they did not - and indeed could
.not - include in those calculations that effect of the migration of EMT
members to the 25-year program and the forfeiture of the chapter 96 AMCs
made prior to that migration because the EMT 25-year program did not
even exist when calculations related to the chapter 96 program were
made. Thus, the AMCs received from these members who migrated was a
level of revenue in excess of what was calculated not be necessary to
make the chapter 96 program sustainable.

Furthermore, the EMT members who migrated to the 25-year retirement
program have contributed all of the AMCs required by that program.  They
contributed the same level of AMCs as others who had never been members
of the chapter 96 program. The contributions they had earlier made to
the chapter 96 program were altogether irrelevant to their entitlements
under the new 25-year retirement program.

By failing to refund the chapter 96 AMCs to the EMTs who migrated into
the new program, an inequity has been created. EMTs and Paramedics who
did not join the chapter 96 program but who are covered by the 25-year
retirement program are entitled to the same retirement benefits as those
who migrated from the chapter 96 program without having had to shell out
the AMCs required under the terms of the chapter 96 program. This ineq-
uity should be redressed. New York is not well-served by laws under
which two different groups of similarly situated employees are entitled
to the same retirement benefits, but one of those groups has had to
expend considerably more money than the other to obtain those benefits.

This Act will address that inequity by refunding the chapter 96 AMCs
made by those EMT members in the 25-year retirement program.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill

 
STATE AND LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

TBD

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.