By Torres                                       H.B. No. 2158

      75R5160 CAS-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to benefits from certain municipal retirement systems for

 1-3     police officers.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 11, Chapter 76, Acts of the 50th

 1-6     Legislature, 1947 (Article 6243g-1, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes),

 1-7     is amended by adding Subsection (i) to read as follows:

 1-8           (i)  The Pension System shall recompute the retirement

 1-9     benefit of each person who retired before January 1, 1981, with a

1-10     benefit of less than forty-five percent (45%) of base salary for

1-11     the first twenty (20) years of service.  The recomputation consists

1-12     of multiplying the difference between forty-five percent (45%) and

1-13     the percentage used in computing the retiree's benefit for the

1-14     first twenty (20) years of service at the time of retirement by the

1-15     base salary of the retiree at the time of retirement and adding the

1-16     product of the multiplication to the retiree's current retirement

1-17     benefit.  A recomputation under this subsection may not result,

1-18     however, in a benefit that would exceed the benefit to which an

1-19     active member would be entitled at retirement with the same amount

1-20     of service and base salary or in a benefit less than the benefit

1-21     the retiree is receiving at the time of the recomputation.  The

1-22     resulting benefit is the retiree's benefit for all payments and

1-23     cost-of-living adjustments made after August 31, 1997,  but the

1-24     retiree is not entitled to recomputation of any benefits paid

 2-1     before September 1, 1997.

 2-2           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.

 2-3           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-4     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-5     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-6     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-7     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.