2025 Kentucky Revised Statutes Chapter 21 - Judicial retirement 21.372 Limitations and exclusions on increases in final compensation for members retiring on or after January 1, 2018 -- Exception for bona fide promotion or career development -- Exclusion -- Determination by board -- Administrative regulations -- Inapplicability to hybrid cash balance plan participants.
Universal Citation:
KY Rev Stat § 21.372 (2025)
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21.372 Limitations and exclusions on increases in final compensation for
members retiring on or after January 1, 2018 -- Exception for bona fide
promotion or career development -- Exclusion -- Determination by board
-- Administrative regulations -- Inapplicability to hybrid cash balance plan
participants.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
For purposes of this section:
(a) "Bona fide promotion or career advancement":
1.
Means a professional advancement in substantially the same line of
work held by the member in the four (4) years immediately prior to
the final sixty (60) months preceding retirement or a change in
employment position based on the training, skills, education, or
expertise of the member that imposes a significant change in job
duties and responsibilities to clearly justify the increased
compensation to the member, including any circumstance when a
member is elected or appointed to another court within the Court of
Justice; and
2.
Does not include any circumstance where a judge or justice
participating in the Judicial Retirement Plan takes a position of
employment with an employer participating in any of the other
state-administered retirement systems; and
(b) "Year" has the same meaning as in KRS 21.345(3).
(a) For members retiring on or after January 1, 2018, the plan shall identify
any consecutive year utilized in determining the member's final
compensation in which the member's compensation increased at a rate of
ten percent (10%) or more over the member's compensation in the
immediately preceding year.
(b) Except as limited or excluded by subsections (3) and (4) of this section,
any amount of increase in compensation for a year identified under
paragraph (a) of this subsection that exceeds ten percent (10%) more
than the member's compensation from the immediately preceding year
shall not be used in the calculation of the member's final compensation
for the purposes of determining the member's monthly pension benefit
under KRS 21.400.
(c) If the member's final compensation is reduced for the purposes of
determining the member's pension benefit under KRS 21.400 as provided
by paragraph (b) of this subsection, the retirement system shall,
notwithstanding KRS 21.460 and as applicable, refund the member
contributions attributable to the reduction in creditable compensation.
In order to ensure the prospective application of the potential reduction in
pension benefits as provided in subsection (2) of this section, only the
compensation earned by the retiring member on or after July 1, 2017, shall be
subject to reduction under subsection (2) of this section. Compensation earned
by the retiring member prior to July 1, 2017, shall not be subject to reduction
under subsection (2) of this section.
Subsections (2) and (3) of this section shall not apply to increases that are the
direct result of a bona fide promotion or career advancement or to
(5)
(6)
compensation used in accordance with KRS 61.680(7) in which the member
does not have sixty (60) months of service in the Judicial Retirement Plan.
The board of trustees shall determine whether increases in compensation
during the final sixty (60) months preceding retirement constitute a bona fide
promotion or career advancement and may promulgate administrative
regulations in accordance with KRS Chapter 13A to administer this section. All
state-administered retirement systems shall cooperate to implement this
section.
This section shall not apply to employees participating in the hybrid cash
balance plan as provided by KRS 21.402.
Effective:April 1, 2021
History: Amended 2021 Ky. Acts ch. 102, sec. 41, effective April 1, 2021. -Amended 2018 Ky. Acts ch. 107, sec. 6, effective July 14, 2018. -- Created 2017
Ky. Acts ch. 125, sec. 2, effective March 27, 2017.
Legislative Research Commission Note (12/13/2018). On December 13, 2018,
the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the passage of 2018 SB 151 (2018 Ky.
Acts ch. 107), did not comply with the three-readings rule of Kentucky
Constitution Section 46 and that the legislation is, therefore, constitutionally
invalid and declared void. That ruling applies to changes made to this statute in
that Act.
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