Public employees' retirement.

The Public Employees' Retirement Law establishes the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) for the purpose of providing pension benefits to specified public employees. PERS is funded by investment returns and employer and employee contributions. Existing law authorizes a contracting agency and its employees to agree in writing to share the costs of any optional benefit that is inapplicable to a contracting agency until the agency elects to be subject to the benefit. This bill would instead authorize a contracting agency and its employees to agree in writing to share the costs of the employer contribution with or without a change in benefits, as specified. The bill would prohibit an employer from using impasse procedures to impose member cost sharing on any contribution amount above that which is authorized by law. The County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 (CERL) authorizes counties and districts, as defined, to provide a system of retirement benefits to their employees. CERL defines compensation earnable for the purpose of calculating benefits as the average compensation for the period under consideration with respect to the average number of days ordinarily worked by persons in the same grade or class of positions during the period, and at the same rate of pay, as determined by the retirement board. This bill would exclude from the definition of compensation earnable any compensation determined by the board to have been paid to enhance a member's retirement benefit. The bill would also exclude various payments from the definition of compensation earnable, including payments for unused vacation, annual leave, personal leave, sick leave, and compensatory time off, as well as payments made at the termination of employment, except what may be earned and payable in each 12-month period during the final average salary period.