Permits an eligible retirement system member to receive, in lieu of an ordinary death benefit, a death benefit such member would otherwise be entitled to receive provided such member is a state-paid judge or justice of the unified court system or a housing judge of the civil court of the city of New York.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A9143
SPONSOR: Tapia TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the retirement and social security law, in relation to
death benefits for the beneficiaries of certain members of the retire-
ment system
PURPOSE:
To ensure state-paid judges and justices receive death benefits even if
they were not retired by their time of death.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Sections 1-3: Includes new sections 63-j, 508-d, and 606-d, which
declares that state-paid judges and justices are eligible for death
benefits, and that they would have been entitled for a service retire-
ment benefit by the time of death. Beneficiaries may elect to receive in
a lump sum; an amount payable, which shall be equal to the pension
reserve that would have been established, had the member retired on the
date of his or her death, or the value of the death benefit and the
reserve-for-increased-take-home-pay, if any, whichever is greater.
Section 4: All past service costs associated with implementing the
provisions of this act shall be borne by the state of New York and may
be amortize over a period cf ten years.
Section 5: Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary,
none of the provisions of this act shall be subject to the appropriation
requirement of section 25 of the retirement and social security law.
Section 6: This act shall take effect immediately
EXISTING LAW:
New bill in 2023
JUSTIFICATION:
State-paid judges and justices deserve death benefits even if they are
not retired. They work for it, so their beneficiaries rightfully deserve
it.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill in 2024
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
If this bill is enacted during the 2024 Legislative Session, we antic-
ipate that there will be an increase of approximately $243,000 in the
annual contributions of the State of New York for the fiscal year ending
March 31, 2025.
In future years, this cost will vary as the billing rates and salary of
the affected members change. In addition to the annual contributions
discussed above, there will be an immediate past service cost of approx-
imately $3.86 million which will be borne by the State of New York as a
one-time payment. This estimate assumes that payment will be made on
March 1, 2025.
If the State of New. York elects to amortize this cost over a 10-year
period, the cost for each year .including interest would be $493,000.
These estimated costs are based on 1,148 affected members employed by
the State of New York, with annual salary of approximately $222 million
as of March 31, 2023.
