BILL NUMBER: S5083
SPONSOR: SEPULVEDA
 
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
declare that state-paid judges and justices are eligible for death bene-
fits, and that they would have been entitled for a service retirement
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 amortized over a period of 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
 
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:
S7567A of 2023-2024: passed by both Houses, vetoed by Governor
(Memo.102)
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
This bill would modify the in-service death benefit for retirement
eligible members of the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement
System who are employed as state-paid judges or justices of the Unified
Court System. The in-service death benefit will be the value of the
pension reserve as if the member had retired on their date of death.
If this bill is enacted during the 2025 Legislative Session, we antic-
ipate that there will be an increase of approximately $287,000 in the
annual contributions of the State of New York for the fiscal year ending
March 31, 2026. In future years this cost will vary but is expected to
average 0.1% of salary annually.
In addition to the annual contributions discussed above, there will be
an immediate past service cost of approximately $4.85 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, 2026. 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 $619,000.
These estimated costs are based on 1,153 affected members employed by
the State of New York, with annual salary of approximately $228 million
as of March 31, 2024.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.