Sacramento Area Sewer District Pension Protection Act of 2024.

Existing law, the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937, authorizes a county to establish a retirement system, as specified, in order to provide pension benefits to county, city, and district employees. Under that law, all officers and employees of a district become members of the county's retirement association on the first day of the calendar month after adoption, by specified vote thresholds, of a resolution by the governing body of the district providing for inclusion of the district in the retirement association and, if the county board of supervisors is not the governing body of the district, the board of retirement consents by majority vote. This bill would enact the Sacramento Area Sewer District Pension Protection Act of 2024, which, on and after the effective date of a resolution of the Board of Retirement of the Sacramento County Employees' Retirement Association consenting to membership by employees of the Sacramento Area Sewer District as described above, would provide that all employees of the county allocated exclusively to the successor entity, would be deemed to be employees of the sewer district and that all duties and obligations in the employment relationship would be assumed by the sewer district. The bill would specify that the sewer district is a "district" for purposes of the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937. The bill would provide that the sewer district would assume the rights, obligations, and status previously occupied by the County of Sacramento with regard to the portion of the county safety plan, which is that portion of the county's defined benefit plan attributed to retirement system members and beneficiaries of the Sacramento Area Sewer District, as specified, to the replacement benefits program, and to all benefit provisions, including optional benefits, within the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 or the Public Employees' Pension Reform Act of 2013, as those rights exist at the time of the transfer of rights, duties, and obligations to the sewer district. The bill would state that its provisions are severable. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the County of Sacramento. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.