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House Bill 13 |
House Author: Callegari et al. |
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Effective: 5-24-13 |
Senate Sponsor: Duncan |
House Bill 13 amends the Government Code to require the State Pension Review Board to post on the board's Internet website, or on a publicly available website linked to the board's website, the most recent data from system reports relating to each public retirement system's actuarial valuation, annual finances, membership, registration, and investment returns and assumptions; to post on the board's website a list of systems that have not submitted the required reports or information within 60 days of the report's or information's due date; and to notify the governor, the Legislative Budget Board, and the governing body of the applicable political subdivisions regarding that lack of timely submission.
House Bill 13 requires the pension review board to develop and make reasonably accessible on the board's Internet website model ethical standards and conflict-of-interest policies for voluntary use by a public retirement system; to develop and administer an educational training program for trustees and system administrators that includes in the program's curriculum minimum training requirements for those individuals; to develop a system to track those individuals' compliance with those requirements; and to include compliance levels in the board's biennial report to the legislature and governor. The bill authorizes a public retirement system to provide its own educational training to its trustees and administrators if the board determines that the system's training meets or exceeds the minimum training requirements set by the board and establishes that a participant in that system's training fulfills the board's training requirements.
House Bill 13 requires a public retirement system to post prominently on a publicly available Internet website that is maintained by or for the system, by the political subdivision whose officials or employees are members of the system, or by a state agency contact information for a system administrator, a copy of the most recent edition of each required report, and other written information that the system is required to submit to the pension review board.
House Bill 13 requires a public retirement system to submit to the pension review board an investment returns and actuarial assumptions report that includes the system's gross and net investment returns and rolling gross and net returns for various specified periods and authorizes the calculation of a net investment return as the money-weighted rate of return for that purpose. The bill requires the governing body of a public retirement system, if any information required in the report is unavailable, to certify and explain that fact to the board and to agree to make a timely submission of that information if it becomes available.
House Bill 13 requires the pension review board to conduct a study of the financial health of public retirement systems in Texas, including each system's ability to meet its long-term obligations, and requires each retirement system to cooperate fully and provide timely responses to board requests for information, other than confidential information protected from public disclosure. The bill requires the board to prepare a written report containing the findings of the study, including recommendations for mitigating risks; to provide each applicable public retirement system an opportunity to review and respond to applicable portions of that report, which the board may revise; and to submit the final written report, including the board's recommendations and any system responses, to the legislature not later than December 1, 2014.