House committee amends public-employee retirement bill to extend disability filing window; amended bill passes committee

Members recommended House Bill 62 do pass after adopting an amendment that extends the post-termination deadline to apply for disability retirement from six months to one year. Representative Darling introduced the measure to revise multiple provisions across Montana's public-employee retirement systems; Representative Schubert successfully moved the one-year filing amendment and asked that it be posted and read.

Representative Schubert said the amendment "will only change language on page 11, line 14" and argued its purpose was to "give individuals 1 year rather than half a year to file for disability retirement." Schubert told the committee the retirement system's executive director was not opposed to the change.

Representative Darling, the bill sponsor, said the board previously supported expanding the post-termination deadline to six months and noted that "even at 4 months, over 90 percent of the people that qualify... file in time," calling the Schubert amendment not "friendly" but not objectionable.

The amendment passed on a recorded voice or roll call of 77 ayes and 22 no. After amendment, the committee recommended the bill do pass; later recorded floor action shows 99 ayes and 0 no votes on the bill in committee-of-the-whole proceedings.

The bill's provisions touched multiple retirement-system technical rules: legislator eligibility, disability-retirement application timing, clarification of benefit calculations tied to federal IRS rules for required minimum distributions, and several definitional and procedural changes. The committee posted and read the amendment as shown in the record.