87R6460 JCG-D
By: Bettencourt S.B. No. 1621
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the eligibility for a service retirement annuity of
certain members and annuitants of a public retirement system
convicted of certain felony offenses.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. The heading to Section 810.003, Government Code,
is amended to read as follows:
Sec. 810.003. CERTAIN ELECTED OFFICIALS AND PUBLIC
EMPLOYEES INELIGIBLE FOR RETIREMENT ANNUITY.
SECTION 2. Sections 810.003(b), (c), (e), (f), (g), (h),
and (k), Government Code, are amended to read as follows:
(b) This section applies only to a person who is:
(1) a member of the elected class of the Employees
Retirement System of Texas as described by Section 812.002(a)(1) or
(2); [or]
(2) [otherwise] eligible for membership in a public
retirement system wholly or partly because the person was elected
or appointed to an elected office, other than a member described by
Subdivision (1); or
(3) a member or annuitant of a public retirement
system employed by the associated governmental entity of the public
retirement system, other than a person described by Subdivision (1)
or (2).
(c) To the extent permitted under Section 66, Article XVI,
Texas Constitution, and consistent with a requirement that the
retirement system maintain the qualified status of the system's
benefit plan under Section 401(a), Internal Revenue Code of 1986,
and notwithstanding any other law and except [Except] as provided
by Subsection (d), a person [member of a public retirement system]
is not eligible to receive a service retirement annuity under the
retirement system if the person [member] is:
(1) described by Subsection (b)(1) or (2) and is
convicted of a qualifying felony committed while in office and
arising directly from the official duties of that elected office;
or
(2) described by Subsection (b)(3) and is convicted of
a qualifying felony described by Subsection (a)(2)(B) or conspiracy
or the attempt to commit a qualifying felony described by
Subsection (a)(2)(B) while employed by the associated governmental
entity and arising directly from the official duties related to
that employment.
(e) Not later than the 30th day after the conviction of a
person of a qualifying felony, the governmental entity [to] which
the person was elected or appointed to or is employed by must
provide written notice of the conviction to the public retirement
system in which the person participates [is enrolled]. The notice
must comply with the administrative rules adopted by the public
retirement system under Subsection (j).
(f) A person [member] who is ineligible to receive a service
retirement annuity under Subsection (c) is entitled to a refund of
the person's [member's] service retirement annuity contributions,
including interest earned on those contributions. A refund under
this subsection is subject to an award of all or part of the
person's [member's] service retirement annuity contributions to a
former spouse, including as a just and right division of the
contributions on divorce, payment of child support, or payment of
spousal maintenance or contractual alimony or other order of a
court.
(g) Benefits payable to an alternate payee under Chapter 804
who is recognized by a qualified domestic relations order
established before the effective date of this subsection are not
affected by a person's [member's] ineligibility to receive a
service retirement annuity under Subsection (c).
(h) On conviction of a person [member] for an applicable [a]
qualifying felony:
(1) a court may, in the same manner as in a divorce or
annulment proceeding, make a just and right division of the
person's [member's] service retirement annuity by awarding to the
person's [member's] spouse all or part of the community property
interest in the annuity forfeited by the person [member]; and
(2) a court shall, if the person's [member's] service
retirement annuity was partitioned or exchanged by written
agreement of the spouses as provided by Subchapter B, Chapter 4,
Family Code, before the person's [member's] commission of the
offense, award the annuity forfeited by the person [member] to the
person's [member's] spouse as provided in the agreement.
(k) A court of this state shall notify the retirement system
of [the terms of] a conviction for an applicable qualifying felony
of a person [convicted of an offense] described by Subsection (c).
SECTION 3. Section 810.003, Government Code, as amended by
this Act, applies only to a member or annuitant of a public
retirement system who commits an offense on or after the effective
date of this Act. A member or annuitant of a public retirement
system who commits an offense before the effective date of this Act
is governed by the law in effect on the date the offense was
committed, and the former law is continued in effect for that
purpose. For purposes of this section, an offense was committed
before the effective date of this Act if any element of the offense
occurred before that date.
SECTION 4. This Act takes effect September 1, 2021.