38-881

38-881. Definitions

(L10, Ch. 200, sec. 53)

In this article, unless the context otherwise requires:

1. "Accidental disability" means a physical or mental condition that the local
board finds totally and permanently prevents an employee from performing a reasonable
range of duties within the employee's department, was incurred in the performance of the
employee's duties and was the result of any of the following:

(a) Physical contact with inmates, prisoners, parolees or persons on probation.

(b) Responding to a confrontational situation with inmates, prisoners, parolees or
persons on probation.

(c) A job related motor vehicle accident while on official business for the
employee's employer. A job related motor vehicle accident does not include an accident
that occurs on the way to or from work. Persons found guilty of violating a personnel
rule, a rule established by the employee's employer or a state or federal law in
connection with a job related motor vehicle accident do not meet the conditions for
accidental disability.

2. "Accumulated member contributions" means for each member the sum of the amount
of all the member's contributions deducted from the member's salary and paid to the fund,
plus member contributions transferred to the fund by another retirement plan covering
public employees of this state, plus previously withdrawn accumulated member
contributions that are repaid to the fund in accordance with this article, minus any
benefits paid to or on behalf of a member.

3. "Actuarial equivalent" means equality in present value of the aggregate amounts
expected to be received under two different forms of payment, based on mortality and
interest assumptions adopted by the board.

4. "Alternate payee" means the spouse or former spouse of a participant as
designated in a domestic relations order.

5. "Alternate payee's portion" means benefits that are payable to an alternate
payee pursuant to a plan approved domestic relations order.

6. "Annuitant" means a person who is receiving a benefit pursuant to section
38-911.

7. "Average monthly salary" means one-thirty-sixth of the aggregate amount of
salary that is paid a member by a participating employer during a period of thirty-six
consecutive months of service in which the member received the highest salary within the
last one hundred twenty months of service. Average monthly salary means the aggregate
amount of salary that is paid a member divided by the member's months of service if the
member has less than thirty-six months of service. In the computation under this
paragraph, a period of nonpaid or partially paid industrial leave shall be considered
based on the salary the employee would have received in the employee's job classification
if the employee was not on industrial leave.

8. "Beneficiary" means an individual who is being paid or who has entitlement to
the future payment of a pension on account of a reason other than the individual's
membership in the retirement plan.

9. "Board" means the board of trustees of the public safety personnel retirement
system.

10. "Claimant" means a member, beneficiary or estate that files an application for
benefits with the retirement plan.

11. "Credited service" means credited service transferred to the retirement plan
from another retirement system or plan for public employees of this state, plus those
compensated periods of service as a member of the retirement plan for which member
contributions are on deposit in the fund.

12. "Cure period" means the ninety-day period in which a participant or alternate
payee may submit an amended domestic relations order and request a determination,
calculated from the time the plan issues a determination finding that a previously
submitted domestic relations order did not qualify as a plan approved domestic relations
order.

13. "Designated position" means:

(a) For a county:

(i) A county detention officer.

(ii) A nonuniformed employee of a sheriff's department whose primary duties require
direct contact with inmates.

(b) For the state department of corrections and the department of juvenile
corrections, only the following specifically designated positions:

(i) Food service.

(ii) Nursing personnel.

(iii) Corrections physician assistant.

(iv) Therapist.

(v) Corrections dental assistant.

(vi) Hygienist.

(vii) Corrections medical assistant.

(viii) Correctional service officer, including assistant deputy warden, deputy
warden, warden and superintendent.

(ix) State correctional program officer.

(x) Parole or community supervision officers.

(xi) Investigators.

(xii) Teachers.

(xiii) Institutional maintenance workers.

(xiv) Youth corrections officer.

(xv) Youth program officer.

(xvi) Behavioral health treatment unit managers.

(xvii) The director and assistant directors of the department of juvenile
corrections and the superintendent of the state educational system for committed youth.

(xviii) The director, deputy directors and assistant directors of the state
department of corrections.

(xix) Other positions designated by the local board of the state department of
corrections or the local board of the department of juvenile corrections pursuant to
section 38-891.

(d) For an employer of an eligible group as defined in section 38-842, full-time
dispatchers.

(e) For the judiciary, probation, surveillance and juvenile detention officers and
those positions designated by the local board of the judiciary pursuant to section
38-891.

(f) For the department of public safety, state detention officers.

14. "Determination" means a written document that indicates to a participant and
alternate payee whether a domestic relations order qualifies as a plan approved domestic
relations order.

15. "Determination period" means the ninety-day period in which the plan must review
a domestic relations order that is submitted by a participant or alternate payee to
determine whether the domestic relations order qualifies as a plan approved domestic
relations order, calculated from the time the plan mails a notice of receipt to the
participant and alternate payee.

16. "Direct rollover" means a payment by the plan to an eligible retirement plan
that is specified by the distributee.

17. "Distributee" means a member, a member's surviving spouse or a member's spouse
or former spouse who is the alternate payee under a plan approved domestic relations
order.

18. "Domestic relations order" means an order of a court of this state that is made
pursuant to the domestic relations laws of this state and that creates or recognizes the
existence of an alternate payee's right to, or assigns to an alternate payee the right
to, receive a portion of the benefits payable to a participant.

19. "Eligible child" means an unmarried child of a deceased active or retired member
who meets one of the following qualifications:

(a) Is under eighteen years of age.

(b) Is at least eighteen years of age and under twenty-three years of age only
during any period that the child is a full-time student.

(c) Is under a disability that began before the child attained twenty-three years
of age and remains a dependent of the surviving spouse or guardian.

20. "Eligible retirement plan" means any of the following that accepts a
distributee's eligible rollover distribution:

(a) An individual retirement account described in section 408(a) of the internal
revenue code.

(b) An individual retirement annuity described in section 408(b) of the internal
revenue code.

(d) A qualified trust described in section 401(a) of the internal revenue code.

(e) An annuity contract described in section 403(b) of the internal revenue code.

(f) An eligible deferred compensation plan described in section 457(b) of the
internal revenue code that is maintained by a state, a political subdivision of a state
or any agency or instrumentality of a state or a political subdivision of a state and
that agrees to separately account for amounts transferred into the eligible deferred
compensation plan from this plan.

21. "Eligible rollover distribution" means a payment to a distributee, but does not
include any of the following:

(a) Any distribution that is one of a series of substantially equal periodic
payments made not less frequently than annually for the life or life expectancy of the
member or the joint lives or joint life expectancies of the member and the member's
beneficiary or for a specified period of ten years or more.

(b) Any distribution to the extent the distribution is required under section
401(a)(9) of the internal revenue code.

22. "Employee" means a person employed by a participating employer in a designated
position.

23. "Employer" means an agency or department of this state or a political
subdivision of this state that has one or more employees in a designated position.

24. "Fund" means the corrections officer retirement plan fund.

25. "Juvenile detention officer" means a juvenile detention officer responsible for
the direct custodial supervision of juveniles who are detained in a county juvenile
detention center.

26. "Local board" means the retirement board of the employer that consists of
persons appointed or elected to administer the plan as it applies to the employer's
members in the plan.

27. "Member" means any employee who meets all of the following qualifications:

(a) Who is a full-time paid person employed by a participating employer in a
designated position.

(b) Who is receiving salary for personal services rendered to a participating
employer or would be receiving salary except for an authorized leave of absence.

28. "Normal retirement date" means the first day of the calendar month immediately
following an employee's completion of twenty years of service or, in the case of a
dispatcher, twenty-five years of service, the employee's sixty-second birthday and
completion of ten years of service or the month in which the sum of the employee's age
and years of credited service equals eighty.

29. "Notice of receipt" means a written document that is issued by the plan to a
participant and alternate payee and that states that the plan has received a domestic
relations order and a request for a determination that the domestic relations order is a
plan approved domestic relations order.

30. "Ordinary disability" means a physical condition that the local board determines
will totally and permanently prevent an employee from performing a reasonable range of
duties within the employee's department or a mental condition that the local board
determines will totally and permanently prevent an employee from engaging in any
substantial gainful activity.

31. "Participant" means a member who is subject to a domestic relations order.

32. "Participant's portion" means benefits that are payable to a participant
pursuant to a plan approved domestic relations order.

33. "Participating employer" means an employer that the board has determined to have
one or more employees in a designated position or a county, city, town or department of
this state that has entered into a joinder agreement pursuant to section 38-902.

34. "Pension" means a series of monthly payments by the retirement plan but does not
include an annuity that is payable pursuant to section 38-911.

35. "Personal representative" means the personal representative of a deceased
alternate payee.

36. "Plan approved domestic relations order" means a domestic relations order that
the plan approves as meeting all the requirements for a plan approved domestic relations
order as otherwise prescribed in this article.

37. "Probation or surveillance officer" means an officer appointed pursuant to
section 8-203, 12-251 or 12-259 but does not include other personnel, office assistants
or support staff.

38. "Retired member" means an individual who terminates employment and who is
receiving a pension pursuant to either section 38-885 or 38-886.

39. "Retirement" or "retired" means termination of employment after a member has
fulfilled all requirements for a pension.

40. "Retirement plan" or "plan" means the corrections officer retirement plan
established by this article.

41. "Salary" means the base salary, shift differential pay, military differential
wage pay and holiday pay paid a member for personal services rendered in a designated
position to a participating employer on a regular monthly, semimonthly or biweekly
payroll basis. Salary includes amounts that are subject to deferred compensation or tax
shelter agreements. Salary does not include payment for any remuneration or
reimbursement other than as prescribed by this paragraph. For the purposes of this
paragraph, "base salary" means the amount of compensation each member is regularly paid
for personal services rendered to an employer before the addition of any extra monies,
including overtime pay, shift differential pay, holiday pay, fringe benefit pay and
similar extra payments.

42. "Segregated funds" means the amount of benefits that would currently be payable
to an alternate payee pursuant to a domestic relations order under review by the plan, or
a domestic relations order submitted to the plan that failed to qualify as a plan
approved domestic relations order, if the domestic relations order were determined to be
a plan approved domestic relations order.

43. "Service" means employment rendered to a participating employer as an employee
in a designated position. Any absence that is authorized by an employer, including any
periods during which the employee is on an employer sponsored long-term disability
program, is considered as service if the employee returns or is deemed by the employer to
have returned to a designated position within the period of the authorized absence.

44. "Total and permanent disability" means a physical or mental condition that is
not an accidental disability, that the local board finds totally and permanently prevents
a member from engaging in any gainful employment and that is the direct and proximate
result of the member's performance of the member's duty as an employee of a participating
employer.