Honorable Joan Huffman, Chair, Senate Committee on State Affairs
FROM:
John McGeady, Assistant Director Sarah Keyton, Assistant Director Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB1570 by Flores (Relating to the effect of certain felony convictions of certain corrections employees.), As Introduced
The bill would add Section 810.004 to the Texas Government Code to make certain corrections employees ineligible for a service retirement annuity if they are convicted of a qualified felony for conduct arising directly from the member's service. Under the bill, a qualifying felony would be defined as any felony involving an incarcerated member of a criminal street gang, including: bribery; embezzlement, extortion, or other theft of public money; perjury; engaging in organized criminal activity; tampering with governmental record; misuse of official information; conspiracy or the attempt to commit any of these crimes; or abuse of official capacity.
If the retirement system received a notice of a conviction of a qualifying felony or any other information that the system determined was sufficient to establish a conviction of a qualifying felony, the retirement system would suspend payments of the convicted person's service retirement annuity.
Withheld payments would be restored, with interest, if the conviction was overturned on appeal or the member met the requirements for innocence under Section 103.001(a)(2) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. The member would be able to resume receipt of annuity payments once the member repaid all refunded contributions. A member who was not eligible to receive a service retirement annuity under the proposal would be entitled to a refund of the member's retirement contributions, including interest earned on those contributions.
Benefits payable under qualified domestic relations orders that were established prior to the effective date of the bill would not be affected by the proposed changes. A court would be able to choose to reward all or a part of the service retirement annuity that was forfeited by the member to an innocent spouse upon the conviction of a member for a qualifying felony. The provisions of this bill would apply to qualified offences committed on or after the effective date of the bill.
The bill would be effective immediately if it receives a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, or September 1, 2019.
According to the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS), the bill would have no significant impact on ERS, due to the small relative number of correctional officers employed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, and the specific offense that would result in suspension of their service retirement annuity. The PRB agrees that the impact of the bill on ERS or any other public retirement system would be negligible.
SOURCES Email correspondence from ERS Governmental Relations, April 23, 2019. Email correspondence from Kenneth J. Herbold, ASA, EA, MAAA, Staff Actuary, Pension Review Board, April 24, 2019.