STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
7825
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
May 9, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sen. MARTINS -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Civil Service and Pensions
AN ACT granting retroactive tier IV membership in the New York state and
local retirement system to members hired on or after January first,
two thousand ten
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary,
2 any state or local employee who is a member of the New York state and
3 local employees' retirement system, and whose date of membership was on
4 or after January 1, 2010 shall be granted benefits as if their date of
5 membership was December 31, 2009, thereby granting Tier IV benefits of
6 such retirement system, unless, within one year of the effective date of
7 this act, such employee shall file a written opt-out request with the
8 state comptroller.
9 § 2. No contributions made to the New York state and local employees'
10 retirement system by a member hired on or after January 1, 2010 shall be
11 refunded or returned to such member pursuant to this act.
12 § 3. Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, none of the
13 provisions of this act shall be subject to the appropriation requirement
14 of section 25 of the retirement and social security law.
15 § 4. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after
16 it shall have become a law.
FISCAL NOTE.--Pursuant to Legislative Law, Section 50:
This bill would grant members of the New York State and Local Employ-
ees' Retirement System (NYSLERS) whose date of membership is on or after
January 1, 2010 (commonly called Tier 5 and Tier 6 members) the retire-
ment benefits of a member whose date of membership is December 31, 2009
(commonly called Tier 4). The members' dates of membership will not
change. There will be no refund of member contributions.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD10872-03-5
S. 7825 2
The provisions of Section 25 of the Retirement and Social Security Law
shall not apply.
Insofar as this bill affects NYSLERS, the increased costs would be
shared by the State of New York and the local participating employers in
the NYSLERS. If this bill were enacted during the 2025 Legislative
Session, the increase in employer costs, equal to the increase in the
present value of benefits and decrease in the present value of employee
contributions, would be approximately $13.3 billion.
NYSLERS Increase in net Increase in required
present value of contributions
employer benefits
Tiers 1-4 $ 0.0 bn $ 4.4 bn
Tiers 5-6 (becoming Tier 4) $ $13.3 bn $ 8.9 bn
Total $ 13.3 bn $ 13.3 bn
In the NYSLERS, this benefit improvement will be funded by increasing
the billing rates charged annually to cover both retrospective and
prospective benefit increases. The annual contribution required of all
participating employers in NYSLERS is 4.9% of billable salary, or
approximately $644 million to the State of New York and approximately
$979 million to the local participating employers. This permanent annualcost will vary in subsequent billing cycles with changes in the billing
rate and salary of the affected members.
These estimated costs are based on 317,854 affected Tier 5-6 members,
with annual salary of approximately $15.7 billion as of March 31, 2024.
Summary of relevant resources:
Membership data as of March 31, 2024 was used in measuring the impact
of the proposed change, the same data used in the April 1, 2024 actuari-
al valuation. Distributions and other statistics can be found in the
2024 Report of the Actuary and the 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial
Report. The actuarial assumptions and methods used are described in the
2024 Annual Report to the Comptroller on Actuarial Assumptions, and the
Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York: Audit and
Control. The Market Assets and GASB Disclosures are found in the March
31, 2024 New York State and Local Retirement System Financial Statements
and Supplementary Information.
This fiscal note does not constitute a legal opinion on the viability
of the proposed change nor is it intended to serve as a substitute for
the professional judgment of an attorney.
This estimate, dated May 5, 2025, and intended for use only during the
2025 Legislative Session, is Fiscal Note No. 2025-115. As Chief Actuary
of the New York State and Local Retirement System, I, Aaron Schottin
Young, hereby certify that this analysis complies with applicable Actu-
arial Standards of Practice as well as the Code of Professional Conduct
and Qualification Standards for Actuaries Issuing Statements of Actuari-
al Opinion of the American Academy of Actuaries, of which I am a member.
