SESSION OF
2001
SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE ON
HOUSE BILL NO. 2542
As Recommended by
House Committee on
Appropriations
Brief
(1)
The bill contains a number of
provisions for the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System
(KPERS) that would:
- Change the title of Executive
Secretary to Executive Director to conform with the title of most
other public pension plan chief executive officers and with the
title of many state agency heads.
- Allow KPERS members flexibility to
prearrange funerals by allowing assignment to funeral homes of the
current $4,000 death benefit paid after a retired member
dies.
- Change with respect to the new
lump sum option, in which a retiring member may take up to 50
percent of a benefit as a single payment, to require a spouse's
consent ratifying the selection of this option.
- Amend current law by providing
that if a KPERS member chooses a lump sum payment and a survivor
option, and if the joint annuitant dies first, then the retired
member's benefit would popup to the maximum monthly benefit had not
the survivor option been selected.
- Make technical amendments to
current law, treating certain lump sum payments like life
insurance. The amendments would clarify that lump sum payments are
to be treated like life insurance in order to gain favorable tax
treatment.
- Allow the KPERS Board of Trustees
to waive the current two-year requirement time period allowed for
filing applications to receive KP&F disability benefits. The
Board would be given authority to waive this requirement if
evidence indicated that the time limit for applications should be
extended.
- Limit the minor-children benefits
to children born, conceived, or adopted prior to the commencement
of a disability for KP&F Tier I members, effective for
disabilities that commence on or after July 1, 2001.
- Provide that a designated KPERS
beneficiary can receive a deceased member's last check if there is
no surviving spouse. Current law provides that only the surviving
spouse may receive the last month's retirement check. If there is
no surviving spouse, KPERS is required to use the statutory line of
defendants even though the member may have selected a beneficiary
who is not in that line.
- Delete references to KSA
74-4911(b) which has been repealed.
Background
This bill was requested by the
KPERS Board of Trustees and recommended by the House Budget
Committee on KPERS issues.
1. *Supplemental
notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do
not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal
note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext.cgi