Each member shall be entitled to receive a monthly pension benefit commencing at his or her normal retirement date and payable during his or her lifetime, which shall be equal to one percent of his or her final monthly average salary, multiplied by his or her years of continuous service with the employer. In no case, however, shall credit be given for years of continuous service exceeding forty.
A member may continue to work beyond his or her normal retirement date, in which case he or she shall be credited with additional years of continuous service, but in no case shall continuous service in excess of forty years be credited. If a member's employment continues beyond normal retirement date, there shall be no retirement benefits paid until employment ceases and retirement begins.
The normal form of payment of benefits shall be a single life annuity. If a member files a written election, on forms approved by the employer, he or she may receive his or her benefit in one of the following optional forms:
(a) Period Certain Option. A reduced pension is payable to the member and, if the member dies before receiving either sixty, 120 or 180 monthly payments (depending upon the period certain elected), payments shall be continued to the member's beneficiary until the completion of such guaranteed period.
(b) Joint and Survivor Annuity. A reduced pension is payable to the member, so that pension payments can be continued to the member's spouse, following the participant's death, in an amount equal to fifty percent, sixty-six and two-thirds percent, seventy-five percent or 100 percent of the amount payable to the member during the member's lifetime.
Any optional form shall be the actuarial equivalent of the normal form of payment. A member's election of an optional form of payment shall be irrevocable as of the date that a member's benefits commence. If a member's spouse (under Option (b)) or a member's beneficiary (under Option (a)) dies before the member, but after payments have commenced, the member shall continue to receive the same reduced monthly payments, but no benefits shall be payable to any other person upon the member's death.
Any member who has completed at least fifteen years of continuous service with the employer and has attained sixty years of age, shall be entitled to retire and to commence receiving an early retirement benefit from the Pension Fund. Such member's pension benefit shall be reduced to its actuarial equivalent if the member receives his or her pension benefit prior to his or her attainment of age sixty-five. Payments shall start, at the election of the member, as of the first day of the month that coincides with or immediately follows the member's early retirement, or on the first day of any intervening month between the participant's early retirement date and his or her normal retirement date.
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 a member or his or her survivors, nor shall they be subject to assignment or transfer.
(Ord. 4443. Passed 10-28-87.)