Committee reviews NPERS cleanup bill LB 295, discusses waiver for inadvertent overpayments and school-plan technical fixes

Trevor Fitzgerald, committee legal counsel, introduced LB 295 to the Nebraska Retirement Systems Committee as a committee-introduced cleanup bill submitted at NPERS’ request. Fitzgerald told the committee the bill “serves as their annual clean up bill” and summarized the major provisions, including a new process for PERB to waive repayment of inadvertent benefit overpayments, expanded acceptable identification documents, technical clarifications to the school employees retirement act, changes to pre-retirement planning program authority, procedural clarifications for PERB meetings and mileage reimbursement, and a prohibition on use of NPERS names or logos in written solicitations without PERB approval.

Fitzgerald described specific provisions: - A process allowing PERB to waive repayment of retirement overpayments in certain situations where the member received an inadvertent overpayment and repayment would create a hardship. - Addition of state-issued learner’s permits and certain automatically extended federal immigration documents to the list of acceptable identification for participation in state retirement systems. - Inclusion of the Omaha School Employees Retirement System (OSERS) in the Nebraska Spousal Pension Rights Act so NPERS can administratively process qualifying domestic relations orders (QDROs) for that plan; Fitzgerald clarified this change does not transfer financial liability for OSERS from Omaha Public Schools to the state. - Multiple technical clarifications for the…