Brief ⁽¹⁾

The bill contains a number of provisions for the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS) that would:

• Change the title of Executive Secretary to Executive Director to conform with the title of most other public pension plan chief executive officers and with the title of many state agency heads.
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• Allow KPERS members flexibility to prearrange funerals by allowing assignment to funeral homes of the current $4,000 death benefit paid after a retired member dies.
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• Change with respect to the new lump sum option, in which a retiring member may take up to 50 percent of a benefit as a single payment, to require a spouse's consent ratifying the selection of this option.
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• Amend current law by providing that if a KPERS member chooses a lump sum payment and a survivor option, and if the joint annuitant dies first, then the retired member's benefit would popup to the maximum monthly benefit had not the survivor option been selected.
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• Make technical amendments to current law, treating certain lump sum payments like life insurance. The amendments would clarify that lump sum payments are to be treated like life insurance in order to gain favorable tax treatment.
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• Allow the KPERS Board of Trustees to waive the current two-year requirement time period allowed for filing applications to receive KP&F disability benefits. The Board would be given authority to waive this requirement if evidence indicated that the time limit for applications should be extended.
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• Limit the minor-children benefits to children born, conceived, or adopted prior to the commencement of a disability for KP&F Tier I members, effective for disabilities that commence on or after July 1, 2001.
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• Provide that a designated KPERS beneficiary can receive a deceased member's last check if there is no surviving spouse. Current law provides that only the surviving spouse may receive the last month's retirement check. If there is no surviving spouse, KPERS is required to use the statutory line of defendants even though the member may have selected a beneficiary who is not in that line.
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• Delete references to KSA 74-4911(b) which has been repealed.

Background

This bill was requested by the KPERS Board of Trustees and recommended by the House Budget Committee on KPERS issues.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext.cgi