BILL ANALYSIS |
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C.S.H.B. 4203 |
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By: Swanson |
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Pensions |
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Committee Report (Substituted) |
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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Concerns have been raised regarding the manner in which the pension of a member of the Texas County and District Retirement System is split in a divorce between the member's former spouse and the member or the member's beneficiary. The parties contend that in certain instances a surviving spouse may not be awarded any portion of the pension with the full pension being divided among other beneficiaries listed on the pension. C.S.H.B. 4203 seeks to address this issue by ensuring that the rights of an alternative payee are equal to the rights of the member or the member's other beneficiaries.
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CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.
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RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 4203 amends the Government Code to replace the requirement for the board of trustees of the Texas County and District Retirement System, following a division of benefits on divorce of a member that awards a portion of the member's accrued benefit to the member's former spouse, to by rule define and specify the rights and responsibilities of the member's alternate payee and the terms and features of the benefit awarded the alternate payee under the qualified domestic relations order incident to the divorce with a requirement for the board to ensure by rule that the rights and responsibilities of the alternate payee and the terms and features of the benefit awarded the alternate payee under that order are equal to the rights attained by the member or the member's beneficiary. The bill removes the board's discretion to by rule prescribe terms on which the interest awarded the alternate payee under such an order may be transferred at the alternate payee's death and instead requires the board by rule to prescribe such terms and requires the prescribed terms to be equal to the terms prescribed for a member. The bill establishes that rules adopted under certain Texas Administrative Code provisions relating to the retirement system and domestic relations orders effective January 1, 2018, are considered to comply with the bill and that the bill applies only a qualified domestic relations order entered or amended on or after January 1, 2018.
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EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2017.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 4203 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and formatted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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