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(a) Annual and quarterly reports.
(1) By February 15 of each year, the chief administrative officer must submit to the county council and county executive an annual report on the status of the retirement system for the preceding fiscal year. The chief administrative officer must make the report available to all interested county officials, each member of the retirement system, and the public.
(2) The chief administrative officer must submit to the council a proposed format of the first annual report that includes the investment performance report of the board. The council must approve or disapprove the format and may request the chief administrator officer to provide additional information in the report. If the council does not act on the format within forty-five (45) days after the chief administrative officer submits the format, the format is automatically approved. The council may extend the time to consider the format for an additional forty-five (45) days.
(3) The council may request the chief administrative officer or the board to provide additional information in the annual report or in additional reports. The chief administrative officer and the board must provide the additional information.
(4) The chief administrative officer must submit to the council quarterly reports on the status of the retirement system. In a quarterly report the chief administrative officer may summarize information provided in an annual report.
(5) By March 31 of each year, the Chief Administrative Officer must submit to the Council and the Executive an annual report on the disability retirement system for the preceding calendar year that includes the number of disability retirement applications, awards, appeals, and re-examinations of retirees for each retirement group. The Council may request the Chief Administrative Officer to provide additional information in the annual report or in additional reports. The Chief Administrative Officer must provide the additional information.
(b) Annual report of member contributions and credited interest. Except for the elected officials' participant contributions to the elected officials' plan, the Board must give each member by December 1 of each year a report on the member's contributions with credited interest as of June 30 of the preceding fiscal year. The Board must give each elected officials' participant a report on the elected officials' participant contributions on a quarterly basis.
(c) Independent audit of the retirement system. A complete independent audit of the retirement system shall be made at least annually by the firm of certified public accountants under contract by the county council for the purpose of implementing the provisions of article III, section 315, of the charter of the county. The complete audit shall be filed with the county council and copies thereof shall be made available to the public and open to public inspection. (Ord. No. 5-152; Ord. No. 6-195, § 1; 1974 L.M.C., ch. 59, § 11; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 44, § 1; 1982 L.M.C., ch. 40, § 5; 1987 L.M.C., ch. 29, § 8; 1994 L.M.C., ch. 33, § 1; 2009 L.M.C., ch. 11, § 1.)
(a) Pension payment. A member's pension will be paid in advance each month during retirement, beginning on the retirement date elected. In the event of the member's death before the end of the month, advanced retirement pension for such month is not returnable. The full monthly amount of each payment will equal one-twelfth of the yearly amount of pension for the member. Payments for less than one (1) full month must be prorated on a daily basis. When pension payments begin, the chief administrative officer must send the member a notice showing the amount and terms of payment. If the payee for any payment is a minor or an incompetent person, the chief administrative officer may authorize payments be made to the person legally responsible for the payee.
(b) Discontinuance of pension payments. A member must not receive pension payments while serving in an appointed or elected County office that receives any compensation paid by the County. A member appointed to a full-time County position must become a member of the retirement system or the Retirement Savings Plan under Sections 33-37 and 33-115 and make member contributions until later separation under Article III or Article VIII. The retirement benefit of an employee who resumes membership in the optional or integrated plan must be recalculated when the employee later separates from service. The retirement benefit under the integrated or optional plans of Article III of an employee who becomes a member of the Retirement Savings Plan or the guaranteed retirement income plan must resume when the employee later separates from service.
(c) Exemption from claims. All pension payments under the system are non-assignable and are exempt from the claims of creditors to the maximum extent permitted by law.
(d) Advanced quarterly payments. Quarterly payments may be made in advance, or with the consent of the payee, a single sum payment in an actuarially equivalent amount may be made, if the amount of any monthly payment payable to any payee would be less than twenty-five dollars ($25.00).
(e) Seven-year limitation. There will be no obligation to make any payment to a payee hereunder unless the payor has received proof that the payee was living on the due date of the payment. If such proof is not received within seven (7) years after the due date of the payment, and if no proof of death of the payee is received during such seven-year period, the obligations of the payor as to the payment will be the same as if the payee had died immediately before the due date of the payment.
(f) Lost Participants in the Elected Officials’ Plan or Guaranteed Retirement Income Plan. The Chief Administrative Officer must use all reasonable resources to locate or communicate with a former participant or a beneficiary in order to make and process required minimum distributions as required by Internal Revenue Code Section 401(a)(9). If such efforts fail, the Chief Administrative Officer, or a third party holding these amounts, must distribute the former participant’s or beneficiary’s unprocessed required minimum distributions to the State under the unclaimed property laws. No amounts will be due to a former participant or beneficiary once paid to the State. The former participant or beneficiary must claim the distributed amounts directly from the State. (Ord. No. 5-152; Ord. No. 6-195, § 1; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 44, § 1; 1987 L.M.C., ch. 29, § 9; 1998 L.M.C., ch. 30, § 1; 2008 L.M.C., ch. 22, § 1; 2009 L.M.C., ch. 23, § 1; 2010 L.M.C., ch. 49, § 1; 2021 L.M.C., ch. 16, §1.)
Editor’s note—See County Attorney Opinion dated 9/12/05 discussing the legislative history and prior opinions regarding the effect of hiring a retired employee on a part-time basis. See County Attorney Opinion dated 10/1/91 explaining that the retirement law does not require discontinuation of retirement benefits of employees who return to County employment in temporary positions.
Any person who shall knowingly make any false statement or shall falsify or permit to be falsified any record or records of this retirement system in any attempt to defraud such system as a result of such act, shall be charged with a misdemeanor, and may be punishable under the laws of the county and the state. Should any change or error in the records result in any member or beneficiary receiving from the retirement system more or less than entitled to receive had the records been correct, the error shall be corrected and as far as practicable the payment shall be adjusted in such manner that the actuarial equivalent of the benefit to which such member or beneficiary was correctly entitled will be paid. Any member or beneficiary who has received payment from the retirement system of any monies to which not entitled under the provisions of this act, shall be required to refund such monies to the system. (Ord. No. 5-152; Ord. No. 6-195, § 1; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 44, § 1.)
Editor’s note—See County Attorney Opinion dated 11/14/11 regarding the County’s liability for errors in the administration of the pension and retirement funds of employees.
The right of a person to pension, the return of member contributions with credited interest, any pension payment option, death benefit, or any other right accrued or accruing to any person under this Article, and the money used to fund the retirement system created by this Article are not subject to execution, garnishment, attachment or any other process, and are not assignable, except as provided in this Article, or when an employee is indebted to the County or the Montgomery County Employees' Federal Credit Union.
Despite any other provision in this Section, a benefit is payable to an alternate payee under a domestic relations order, as defined in Section 414(p)(1)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code, if the order is considered a qualified domestic relations order under Section 414(p)(11) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Chief Administrative Officer must authorize forms and procedures to determine whether a domestic relations order is qualified, and must determine the form and timing of distributions under a qualified order. (Ord. No. 5-152; Ord. No. 6-195, § 1; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 44, § 1; 1998 L.M.C., ch. 31, § 1.)
(a) Filing of plan. The plan of the employees' retirement system of the county shall be filed with the Insurance Department of the State of Maryland and the Internal Revenue Service, United States Treasury Department.
(b) Filing of contract. The contract entered into between the county and the funding agent shall be filed with the Insurance Department of the State of Maryland and the Internal Revenue Service, United States Treasury Department. (Ord. No. 5-152; Ord. No. 6-195, § 1; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 44, § 1.)
(a) In the event it is determined that the elected officials' plan is not a qualified plan within the meaning of section 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, then the provisions of this chapter regarding the elected officials' plan are repealed as of the date of the determination. The repeal dates back to the original effective date of this act.
(b) Any account balance with respect to county elected officials' contributions must be returned to the county as soon as administratively possible after the repeal.
(c) Any account balance with respect to required elected officials' participant contributions or account balance with respect to voluntary elected officials' participant contributions, including any amount picked up by the county pursuant to section 33-39(a)(3), must, as soon as administratively possible following a repeal under this section 33-55A, be returned to the elected officials' participant who made them.
(d) (1) Following a repeal under this section 33-55A, an elected officials' participant who does not make the election provided for in subsection 33-55A(e) may choose to become a participant in a retirement plan of the retirement system in which that individual would have been eligible to participate if the elected officials' plan had never existed.
(2) Benefits and vesting under a plan in which the individual becomes a participant under paragraph (d)(1) must be determined based only on credited service earned or purchased after the individual becomes a participant in the plans, plus any credited service earned or purchased prior to the individual's becoming an elected officials' participant, except as otherwise provided in paragraph (d)(3).
(3) Credited service earned while an elected officials' participant must be counted in determining benefits and vesting under a plan in which the individual becomes a participant under paragraph (d)(1) if the individual so chooses. An individual making that choice must contribute to the plan, in a single lump-sum cash payment, the total nonvoluntary employee contributions that the employee would have been required to make under the plan for the period during which that individual was an elected officials' participant if the individual had participated in the plan instead of the elected officials' plan. The county must also make, on behalf of any individual making the choice and contribution, contributions to the plan in the amount the county would have made on behalf of that individual for the period during which that individual was an elected officials' participant if the individual had participated in the plan instead of the elected officials' plan.
(e) Following a repeal under this section 33-55A, an individual who was an elected officials' participant may choose to have the county establish on that individual's behalf a nonqualified deferred compensation arrangement within the meaning of section 457 of the Internal Revenue Code. The arrangement must provide for deferral of compensation, beginning as of the first day of the month following the month in which the arrangement is entered into, until the individual's normal retirement date, in amounts that are sufficient to provide for a benefit comparable to the benefit the individual would have received under the elected officials' plan from the county elected officials' contributions account of the individual, assuming for purposes of the arrangement that the elected officials' plan would have continued to the individual's date of distribution and that all county elected officials' contributions would have been made to the elected officials' plan on the individual's behalf up to that date and that the account balance in the county elected officials' contributions account as of the date of repeal under this section 33-55A, and all subsequent contributions, would have earned interest, from and after the date of repeal under this section 33-55A, at the rate of six (6) percent per year. The regular earnings of such elected official must be increased as of the first day of the month following the month in which such arrangement is entered into by an amount equal to the amount to be deferred each month under such arrangement. (1987 L.M.C., ch. 27, § 11.)
(a) The Chief Administrative Officer is responsible for deciding questions arising under this Article. Any member of the County's retirement system and any retiree or designated beneficiary eligible to receive benefits from the retirement system, may request, in writing, a decision on questions arising under this Article from the Chief Administrative Officer, who must respond in writing to such request within 60 days. The response must include a statement of appeal rights.
(b) The Chief Administrative Officer's decision on a disability application under Section 33- 43 may be appealed under subsection 33-43.
(c) Any other decision by the Chief Administrative Officer may be appealed within 15 days to the Merit System Protection Board under procedures established by the Board. The decision of the Board is final. (Ord. No. 5-152; Ord. No. 6-195, § 1; 1974 L.M.C., ch. 31, § 16; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 44, § 1; 1982 L.M.C., ch. 40, § 5; 1995 L.M.C., ch. 3, § 1; 2003 L.M.C., ch. 31, § 1.)
Editor’s note-The above section is cited in Fultz v. Shaffer, 111 Md.App. 278, 681 A.2d 568 (1996).
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