Archives - 100th Legislature
100th Legislature - 2008 & 2007
2008 Legislative Action
| LR 310 Patrol |
Interim study to examine mandatory retirement age and purchase of service provisions in the Patrol Plan. | Interim Study |
| LR 311 All Plans |
Interim study to examine the employee retirement systems administered by the Public Employees Retirement Board and the Class V Retirement System. The study will examine funding needs, benefits, contributions, and the administration of each system. | Interim Study |
| LR 403 Law Enforcement |
Interim study to examine law enforcement retirement plans including retirement plans for peace officers employed by cities of the second class and villages. The study will also examine whether law enforcement personnel of counties and first class cities should be moved to another plan, and funding for any such plan developed. | Interim Study |
| LB 329 All Plans |
Reduces the years of experience necessary for the qualifications of director of NPERS from 5 years to 3 years. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 365 Judges |
Provides an early retirement benefit for members of the Judges Plan. Under the bill, a judge may retire as early as age 62 and receive a reduced monthly retirement benefit. The benefit would be the actuarial equivalent of the normal retirement annuity except it would be reduced by 9% if the member retires at age 62, 6% at age 63, or 3% at age 64. | Amended into LB1147 |
| LB 371 Law Enforcement Officers |
Creates the Nebraska Peace Officer Retirement Plan to be administered by NPERS. The plan would be a defined benefit plan with provisions similar to the State Patrol Plan and includes a DROP provision. By definition, the plan would include "any town marshal, chief of police, police officer, sheriff, or deputy sheriff and also include conservation officers of the Game and Parks Commission". Individuals NOT covered would include, "any individual employed as a police officer by a city of the metropolitan or primary classes, any Nebraska State Patrol officer, or any individual employed by a county containing a city of the metropolitan class". Both the member and the employer would contribute 8% of monthly compensation. If an additional contribution was necessary to meet an unfunded actuarial liability, the political subdivisions would be required to contribute the additional amount. |
Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 372 Law Enforcement Officers |
Creates the Nebraska Law Enforcement Officer Retirement Act to be administered by NPERS. The plan is a cash balance plan which requires members to contribute 6% of monthly compensation and employers to contribute 9%. The crediting rate on member accounts would be the greater of 5% or the federal mid-term rate plus 1½%. The employers would be liable for any actuarial liability which might result if the contributions were insufficient. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 611 State Patrol |
Changes the State Patrol contribution rates effective after July 1, 2007 , to 14% of monthly compensation by the member, and 16% by the employer. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 612 School |
Further defines compensation for the School Plan. Adds a subsection that deals with two exceptions to the requirement that compensation which exceeds 107% of the previous year’s compensation will not be considered during the 60 months immediately prior to retirement. The first exception change allows compensation over 107% if the district’s collective bargaining resulted in an average increase of more than 7% over the previous year. The second one allows compensation that resulted because the employee obtained an education degree (for instance, completed a Masters). | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 613 School |
Changes contribution percentages for employees and employers in the School Plan. Employees currently pay 7.83% of monthly compensation as their retirement contribution and the employers match at 101% of that rate (about 7.91%). The rates were scheduled to go back down to 7.25%, employee, and about 7.32%, employer, on September 1, 2007 . This bill would establish the rate at 7.30% for employees and change the employer match to 108% of the employee amount (about 7.88%) instead of going down to the old rates. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 711 Judges School |
Changes the time periods in which members of the Judges Plan and the School Plan may apply for retirement disability benefits. Current law requires the application to be made within one year of termination of employment, or in the case of school members whose disability is employment-related, five years. LB 711 would allow disability applications at any time prior to the date of normal retirement eligibility. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 937 State County |
Contains “clean-up” language to further clarify immediate plan participation for State and County members. | Amended into LB1147 |
| LB 938 State County |
Allows beneficiaries of deceased State and County members the ability to make investment changes. Applies to Defined Contribution accounts only. | Amended into LB1147 |
| LB 967 School |
Removes the language that requires fees for annual audits to be paid from School Plan assets. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 992 All Plans |
Restricts or prohibits investments with ties to Sudan. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 1133 All Plans |
Appropriates $6,000 from the General Fund to conduct an actuarial study to design a service purchase provision for the State Patrol Plan. The results of the study shall be presented to the Legislature before December 1, 2008. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 1143 All Plans |
LB1143 would require a review of the current statutory, regulatory, and organizational structure of the Nebraska Investment Council in comparison to the best practices of similar state investment offices. A qualified independent organization will be hired to make recommendations to the Council, the Governor and the Legislature. | Amended into LB1147 |
| LB 1146 School |
Minor change in the definition of compensation for the School Plan. Under prior language, only contributions made by the member to tax sheltered entities (such as section 125 “cafeteria plans”, or 403(b) and 457 retirement plans) were included as part of compensation. This bill would remove “by the member” from the language thereby including contributions made by an employer. | Indefinitely postponed |
| LB 1147 All Plans |
Modifies the language used to determine annual cost of living adjustments for the School, Judges and
State Patrol Plans. Proposed changes would not change the actual amount of COLA adjustments but merely clarify the language. Amendments: Language from LB365, LB 937, LB 938 & LB1143 amended into this bill. |
Passed and signed into law |
2007 Legislative Action
| LB 303 State Patrol |
Adds a Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) to the State Patrol retirement plan. Under the DROP, a member who is at least age 50 and who has 25 years of service would be allowed enter the program. Upon entry, both the member and the employer (State) would cease making the monthly contributions to the patrol retirement plan (currently 13%, employee, and 15%, employer). The member’s retirement benefits would be calculated as of the DROP entry date, but the member would continue to work, and the member’s monthly retirement benefits would be deposited in one or more investment accounts chosen by the member and maintained by the Investment Council. The monthly benefit checks would continue to accumulate in the account(s) for up to 5 years, at which time the member would be required to retire. (Patrol members currently have a mandatory age 60 retirement provision.) Upon retirement, the monthly benefits would commence being paid to the member, and the member would have access to the DROP account(s) which had accumulated up to that date together with the investment earnings on them. The current COLA for patrol plan retirees would not apply to the member during the time the member was participating in the DROP. Thus, after the DROP participation, the member would have a slightly smaller monthly retirement benefit, but would have the employee retirement contributions which were not made during the period, and would have up to 5 years of benefits and investment income to take as a distribution, rollover, or annuity. | Amended into LB324 |
| LB 324 State Patrol |
Retains
the State Patrol contribution rates as they currently exist (13% of monthly compensation by the member; 15% of monthly
compensation by the employer). Under existing statutes, the rates are scheduled to drop to 12%, employee; and 13%, employer, on July 1,
2007. Amendments: AM653 - Amends language from LB303 into this bill. |
Passed and signed into law. |
| LB 328 State County |
LB 328 was prepared at NPERS’ request and makes two changes to the State plan
and the same two changes to the County plan. First, the bill creates the County Employees Cash Balance Expense Fund
and the State Employees Cash Balance Expense Fund. Currently, NPERS accounts for cash balance expenses in sub-funds of the applicable
plans. The second change removes the 60 day period during which to reenroll County and State plan
members who return to permanent, full-time employment. The members would begin participation immediately under the bill. (Immediate
participation for county and state employees was instituted last year in LB 366.) |
Passed and signed into law. |
| LB 329 All Plans |
Reduces the years of experience necessary in the qualifications of the director of NPERS from the current 5 years to 3 years. | Bill Introduced |
| LB 365 Judges |
Provides an early retirement benefit for members of the Judges plan. Under the bill, a judge may retire as early as age 62 and receive a reduced monthly retirement benefit. The benefit would be the actuarial equivalent of the normal retirement annuity except it would be reduced by 9% if the member retires at age 62, 6% at age 63, or 3% at age 64. | Bill Introduced |
| LB 370 Law Enforcement Officers |
Would require NPERS to conduct a survey of all law enforcement retirement systems in the state and file a report with the Retirement Committee of the Legislature not later than October 1, 2007 . Such information as the types of retirement plans currently available to law enforcement officers and demographic information of the officers would be included in the survey. Political subdivisions of the state would be required to provide the information to NPERS. After the survey is complete, an actuarial analysis of the data would be conducted. | Amended into LB328 |
| LB 371 Law Enforcement Officers |
Creates the Nebraska Peace Officer Retirement Act to be administered by NPERS. The plan is a defined benefit plan with provisions similar to the State Patrol plan and incorporates a DROP plan. Both the member and the employer would contribute 8% of monthly compensation. If an additional contribution was necessary to meet an unfunded actuarial liability, the political subdivisions would be required to contribute the additional amount. | Bill Introduced |
| LB 372 Law Enforcement Officers |
Creates the Nebraska Law Enforcement Officer Retirement Act to be administered by NPERS. The plan is a cash balance plan which requires members to contribute 6% of monthly compensation and employers to contribute 9%. The crediting rate on member accounts would be the greater of 5% or the federal mid-term rate plus 1½%. The employers would be liable for any actuarial liability which might result if the contributions were insufficient. | Bill Introduced |
| LB 468 All Plans |
Prohibits the state from directly holding investments in entities which have a business relationship with the government of Sudan, which provide little or no benefit to disadvantaged Sudanese, and which have not acknowledged and addressed Sudanese genocide. Plan participant-directed investments (State and County defined contribution and Deferred Compensation plans) are exempted from the provisions of the bill. | Bill Withdrawn |
| LB 508 School Judges |
Changes the periods in which members of the Judges plan and the School plan may make
application for disability benefits and for death benefits. Under current law, the surviving spouse of a judge or a school employee must make
application for certain benefits within 120 days of the member’s death. If an application is not filed with the time period, the surviving
spouse will only be entitled to the member contributions and regular interest. The bill would extend the application period to 12 months. For
disability applications, current law requires the application to be made within one year of termination of employment, or in the case of school
members whose disability is employment-related, five years. The bill would allow disability applications at any time prior to the date of normal
retirement eligibility. Amendments: AM968 - Removes the language regarding disability applications. |
Passed and signed into law. |
| LB 596 School |
Provides for a one time adjustment to the annuities of School and Class V School plan members
so that the current annuity is not less than 90% of the original annuity amount as adjusted by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and
Clerical Workers for the period from the date of the original annuity until June 30, 2007. Amendments: AM610 - Changes the percentage from 90% to 85%. AM1015 - Changes School member contribution rates. Current rate is 7.83 which was to reduce to 7.25 on September 1, 2007. This amendment will slightly increase that rate on 9/1/2007 to 7.28. |
Passed and signed into law. |
| LB 611 State Patrol |
Changes the State Patrol contribution rates effective after July 1, 2007 , to 14% of monthly compensation by the member, and 16% by the employer. | Bill Introduced |
| LB 612 School |
Further defines compensation for the School plan members. It would add a new subsection that deals with two exceptions to the requirement that compensation which exceeds 107% of the previous year’s compensation will not be considered during the 60 months immediately prior to retirement. The first exception change [(f)(i)(B)] allows compensation over 107% if the district’s collective bargaining resulted in an average increase of more than 7% over the previous year. The second one [(f)(i)(D)] allows compensation that resulted because the employee obtained an education degree (for instance, completed a Masters). | Bill Introduced |
| LB 613 School |
Changes contribution percentages for employees and employers in the School plan. Employees currently pay 7.83% of monthly compensation as their retirement contribution and the employers match at 101% of that rate (about 7.91%). The rates were scheduled to go back down to 7.25%, employee, and about 7.32%, employer, on September 1, 2007 . This bill would establish the rate at 7.30% for employees and change the employer match to 108% of the employee amount (about 7.88%) instead of going down to the old rates. | Bill Introduced |
| LB 665 State County |
Allows a new period in which members of the County plan and the State plan could elect to participate in the cash balance option of their respective plans. The new election period would be from November 1, 2007 , through December 31, 2007 . Members who previously elected to participate in the cash balance option would not be required to reelect. Defined contribution members who did not file an election during the new election period would continue to participate in the defined contribution option. | Amended into LB328 |