Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

In an effort to work towards keeping the Allegheny County Pension Fund actuarially sound, I plan to introduce legislation that makes revisions to the Allegheny County Pension system as suggested by the Allegheny County Retirement Board. Please note that these changes to pension benefits will apply to future employees only who are hired or re-employed on or after the effective date of this act.

The legislation proposes the following changes:

1. Composition of Board – Technical change. This section would be updated for uniformity purposes to the existing language of the Allegheny County Home Rule Charter.
   
2. In order for the Allegheny County Retirement Board (ACRB) to be compliance with the IRS rules and regulations. The proposal gives authority to ACRB to take such actions that are necessary to be in compliance with the IRS rules and regulations on an ongoing basis.
   
3. Calculation for retirement would be the average monthly compensation received by the County employee during the highest 48 months of the last 8 years of employment of 4 years on a bi-weekly basis;
   
4. Eliminate the use of overtime in the calculation of compensation for all future employees except for overtime that does not exceed ten percent (10%) of base pay;
   
   The following changes are proposed for the Allegheny County Pension System that are modeled on language that was included in the State Pension Reform Act—Act 120-2010 (HB 2497 PN 4476).
   
5. Increase vesting from 8 years to 10 years.
   
6. Reduce the benefit multiplier from 2.5% to 2%
   
7. The provisions will take effect 60 days after enactment.

Similar legislation was introduced as Senate Bill 274, Printer’s No. 278 in the 2009-2010 legislative session and was sponsored by Senators Costa, Fontana, Orie, Logan, Pippy and Ferlo.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.