(a) Each member shall be entitled to receive a pension benefit as follows:
(1) For police officers hired on or after January 1, 1988 but before January 1, 1989, upon accruing twenty years of service with the Department of Police without regard to age.
(2) For police officers hired after January 1, 1989 but before March 11, 2010, upon having attained the age of fifty and the completion of twenty years plus one day of service with the Department of Police.
(3) For police officers hired after March 10, 2010, upon having attained the age of fifty and the completion of twenty-five years of service with the Department of Police.
Payment of pension benefits upon retirement shall be conditioned upon a member being subject to service, from time to time, as a police reserve, until unfitted for such service, at which time such member shall be finally discharged by reason of age or disability. In no case, however, shall a member's retirement date be later than the date when the member attains sixty-five years of age.
(b) A member entitled to a pension benefit shall receive, during the member's lifetime, a monthly retirement income equal to one-half of the member's final monthly average salary.
(c) Each member who becomes entitled to a pension benefit shall also become entitled to payment of a service increment benefit equal to the number of whole years in excess of twenty of continuous service, or twenty-five years for members hired on or after January 1, 2018, (including any credit for military service as provided in Section 289.04) multiplied by one-fortieth of the pension benefit which the member is entitled to receive. No service increment benefit which is in excess of five hundred dollars per month, or one hundred dollars per month in the case of a member hired on or after January 1, 2018, shall be paid to a member, nor shall such increment reflect any employment after the member has reached sixty-five years of age.
(d) The pension payments herein provided for shall not be subject to attachment, execution, levy, garnishment or other legal process, and shall be payable only to the member or the member's survivors, nor shall they be subject to assignment or transfer.
(e) If any member, whether active or retired, dies, the member's spouse, or if no spouse survives or if a spouse survives and subsequently dies or remarries, a member's child or children under eighteen years of age, shall receive a monthly income equal to fifty percent of the pension benefit the member was receiving under the Plan, or would have received if the member's pension had been in pay status at the time of the member's death. For members with a hire date prior to January 1, 2018, this survivor's benefit shall be one hundred percent.
(f) If a member of the employer who has completed at least fifteen years of continuous service with the employer incurs a disability, or if a member who has completed at least ten years of continuous service with the employer incurs a disability while in the line of duty, and the member is unable to perform the duties of a member, the member shall be entitled to receive a disability pension benefit which shall be equal to the member's pension benefit calculated as of the member's date of disability.
(g) Each member who becomes entitled to receive a disability pension benefit from the Pension Fund shall be required to submit to medical examinations by three physicians designated by the employer. Thereafter, the employer may annually require the member to have a medical examination to certify such member's continued disability and, if the member refuses to comply with such requirement, payment of the member's disability pension benefit shall cease.
If a member dies while receiving a disability pension benefit from the Pension Fund, such benefit payments, in an amount equal to fifty percent of the disability pension benefit, may be continued to the member's surviving spouse, or if no spouse survives or if the spouse survives and subsequently dies or remarries, then to the child or children under eighteen years of age of the deceased member.
(Ord. 4460. Passed 4-13-88; Ord. 4929. Passed 2-11-04; Ord. 5355. Passed 6-14-23.)