Under current law, tax commissioners and their employees are members of the state retirement system.  Nothing in HB 236 affects the retirement benefits of current tax commissioners or their employees.  Nor does it require counties to pay any of the employer contributions for the current tax commissiners or employees. Going forward, however, HB 236 provides that tax commissioners who first take office and any of their employees that are first hired after July 1, 2012, will not become participants in the state retirement system unless, however, the board of commissioners adopts a resolution to inlcude them in the state system.  Where the commissioners elect to include them in the state system, the county would have to make the employer contributions to fund those benefits.  In addition, the county will have to collect the employee contributions from the participants and remit the employee contributions and the employer contributions to the state retirement system.

This bill statutorily specifies that a board of trustees of public retirement systems and public pension plans have the same duties that common law places on trustees.

This bill eliminates the tiered surcharge on traffic fines to fund probate judges retirement.  There will now be a $3.00 surcharge on every traffic case.

This bill prohibits the state, counties and cities from purchasing life insurance policies payable to the government on current or retired employees.