2017 South Carolina Code of Laws
Title 9 - Retirement Systems
CHAPTER 11 - POLICE OFFICERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM
Section 9-11-210. Contributions of members; employer to pay required member contributions on earnings after July 1, 1982; tax treatment; funding; retirement treatment.
(1) Each Class One member shall contribute to the system twenty-one dollars a month during his service after becoming a member. Each Class Two and Class Three member shall contribute to the system a percentage of the member's earnable compensation as provided pursuant to Section 9-11-225.
(2) Any police officer who is a participant in the Supplemental Allowance Program on June 30, 1974 and has not made contributions under said Program with respect to his credited service prior to his date of participation therein may elect, by written notice filed with the Board within ninety days after July 1, 1974, to establish credit for such service as Class Two service by making a special contribution equal to the amount which would have resulted had he, during each month of such service, made contributions to the System equal to two percent of the portion of his monthly compensation in excess of four hundred dollars during the month immediately preceding his participation in the Supplemental Allowance Program and had such contributions been accumulated with interest at the rate of four percent per annum to July 1, 1974 and at regular interest as determined by the Board thereafter to the date of payment. Such contribution shall be paid within twelve months following the filing of the aforesaid notice.
(3) Any Class Two member, other than a member who makes the election provided in subsection (2) of this section, who has credited service which does not qualify as Class Two service may elect by written notice filed with the Board at any time prior to retirement to establish credit for such service as Class Two service by making a special contribution prior to retirement equal to the excess of (a) five percent of his monthly rate of compensation at the time such contribution is made, over (b) sixteen dollars, multiplied by (c) the number of months of such credited service.
(4) Reserved.
(5) The Board shall prescribe by appropriate rules and regulations the manner in which the contributions provided in subsections (2), (3) and (4) of this section shall be made.
(6) Each member who was, immediately prior to his becoming a member, a participant in another fund shall, and is hereby authorized and required to, cause the amount of his full contributions made under such other fund to be transferred to the System within two months of the date of his membership, provided that the service credited to him under such other fund is includable in his credited service under the System. If the amount so transferred exceeds the amount which would have been transferable from the Police Insurance and Annuity Fund had the member made all required contributions thereto in connection with service prior to July 1, 1962 before becoming a member, plus the amount which the member would have been required to contribute to the System on account of service after said date and prior to his actual date of membership, the Board shall under uniform rules and regulations determine the amount of such excess and treat it as an additional contribution which upon his retirement shall be used to provide an additional retirement allowance. If, however, a deficiency exists, the Board shall require that such deficiency be made up by the member within such period of time as the Board may deem reasonable. This subsection shall not apply to a member transferred from a correlated system to whom the provisions of Section 9-11-40(9) are applicable.
(7) The collection of members' contributions is as follows:
Each employer must cause to be deducted on each and every payroll of a member the contributions payable by the member. In determining the amount to be deducted in a payroll period, the employer may consider the rate of compensation of the member on the first day of the payroll period as continuing throughout the payroll period and it may omit deduction from compensation for any period less than a full payroll period if a police officer was not a member on the first day of the payroll period. The chief fiscal officer of each employer shall transmit the amounts deducted to the System together with a schedule of the contributions, on forms prescribed by the Board, to reach the Retirement System on or before the last day of each month for the preceding month. If any employer fails to do so, or if arrears should at any time exist in making monthly payroll reports and remittances as required hereunder and by the rules and regulations of the Board, the compensation of any person or officer of any employer charged with the responsibility of making monthly payroll reports and remittances to the System must be withheld by the employer in each instance of failure to make the reports and remittances until all reports and remittances required hereunder and by the rules and regulations of the Board have been made. The System shall furnish monthly to the disbursing officers of each employer a statement of any failure to make payroll reports and remittances and the names of the persons or officers failing to make the reports and remittances.
Any person failing to transmit, in the manner and within the period herein required, the contributions deducted is guilty of a misdemeanor and must be punished by fine or imprisonment, or both, in the discretion of the court.
(8) Every member shall be deemed to consent and agree to the deductions made and provided for herein, and shall receipt for his full salary or compensation, and payment of salary or compensation less such deduction shall be a full and complete discharge and acquittance of all claims and demands whatsoever for the services rendered by such person during the period covered by such payment, except as to the benefits provided under the System.
(9) Each of the amounts so deducted shall be credited to the individual account of the member from whose compensation the deduction was made.
(10) Any employer may pay to the System on behalf of the members in its employ the amounts which such members would otherwise be required to contribute pursuant to subsection (2) or (3) of this section in order to establish credit as Class Two service for any period of credited service prior to the date on which such members became eligible for Class Two membership or for participation in the Supplemental Allowance Program or any amounts which such members would otherwise be required to contribute pursuant to subsection (4) of this section in order to establish credit for any period of service prior to the date on which such members became eligible for membership. Such amounts contributed by an employer shall not be credited to the members' accumulated contributions, but in the event that a member's accumulated contributions are returned to him upon termination of his membership or are paid to the person designated by him upon his death prior to retirement, any amount contributed by the employer on behalf of the member pursuant to this subsection (10) shall be returned to said employer.
(11) Each department and political subdivision shall pick up the employee contributions required by this section for all compensation paid on or after July 1, 1982, and the contributions so picked up shall be treated as employer contributions in determining federal tax treatment under the United States Internal Revenue Code. For this purpose, each department and political subdivision is deemed to have taken formal action on or before January 1, 2009, to provide that the contributions on behalf of its employees, although designated as employer contributions, shall be paid by the employer in lieu of employee contributions. The department and political subdivision shall pay these employee contributions from the same source of funds which is used in paying earnings to the employee. The department and political subdivision may pick up these contributions by a reduction in the cash salary of the employee. The employee, however, must not be given the option of choosing to receive the contributed amount of the pickups directly instead of having them paid by the employer to the retirement system. Employee contributions picked up shall be treated for all purposes of this section in the same manner and to the extent as employee contributions made prior to the date picked up.
(12) Payments for unused sick leave, single special payments at retirement, bonus and incentive-type payments, or any other payments not considered a part of the regular salary base are not compensation for which contributions are deductible. This item does not apply to bonus payments paid to certain categories of employees annually during their work careers. Bonus or special payments applied only during the "Average Final Compensation" period are excluded as compensation. Not including Class Three members, contributions are deductible on up to and including forty-five days' termination pay for unused annual leave. If a member has received termination pay for unused annual leave on more than one occasion, contributions are deductible on up to and including forty-five days' termination pay for unused annual leave for each termination payment for unused annual leave received by the member. However, only an amount up to and including forty-five days' pay for unused annual leave from the member's last termination payment shall be included in a member's average final compensation calculation for members eligible to have unused annual leave included in that calculation.
HISTORY: 1962 Code Section 61-344; 1962 (52) 1933; 1974 (58) 2032; 1977 Act No. 219 Pt II Section 26; 1982 Act No. 315, Section 4; 1982 Act No. 349, Section 4; 1982 Act No. 372, Section 3; 1985 Act No. 201, Part II, Sections 47F, and 48G; 1986 Act No. 529, Section 3, eff June 18, 1986; 1988 Act No. 424, Section 3, eff July 1, 1988; 1994 Act No. 420, Section 6, eff May 25, 1994 and applies with respect to payments made after June 30, 1995, to establish retirement system service credit; 2000 Act No. 387, Part II, Section 67P, eff January 1, 2001; 2005 Act No. 14, Section 4, eff July 1, 2004; 2008 Act No. 311, Section 22, eff June 4, 2008; 2012 Act No. 278, Pt III, Section 27, eff July 1, 2012.
Effect of Amendment
The 1986 amendment revised subsection (12) by making grammatical changes; deleting "and other" before "single special payments at retirement"; adding "bonus and incentive-type payments, or any other payments not considered a part of the regular salary base"; and adding the provisions that this item does not apply to bonus payments paid to certain categories of employees annually during their work careers, that bonus or special payments applied only during the "Average Final Compensation" period are excluded as compensation, and that contributions are deductible on pay for unused annual leave.
The 1988 amendment in subsection (1) replaced "sixteen" with "twenty-one", "per" month with "a" month, and "five" with "six and one-half".
The 1994 amendment in subsection (4) increased the contribution rate to establish prior police service from sixteen to twenty-one dollars a month for class one service and from five to six and one-half percent of monthly compensation.
The 2000 amendment substituted "Reserved" for the text of subsection (4).
The 2005 amendment, in subdivision (12), in the fourth sentence added "up to and including forty-five days termination" and added the fifth and sixth sentences.
The 2008 amendment, in subsection (11), deleted the clause at the end of the first sentence referring to the Internal Revenue Code and added the second and fifth sentences.
The 2012 amendment inserted "and Class Three" and substituted "a percentage of the member's earnable compensation as provided pursuant to Section 9-11-225" for "six and one-half percent of his compensation" in item (1); and in item (12) inserted "Not including Class Three members," and "for members eligible to have unused annual leave included in that calculation".
