Committee hears bill to let totally disabled veterans draw PERS retirement earlier

Representative Craig Rauscher introduced House Bill 17 to the House Finance Committee on March 19 as a reintroduction of a measure from the prior session. He said HB17 "ensures that veterans who are totally and permanently disabled can access the accrued PERS retirement benefit a few years earlier without penalty" and clarified the bill "does not expand benefits; it simply removes unnecessary hurdles for disabled veterans who have already served."

Chief of staff Craig Valdez presented the sectional analysis to committee members. The bill amends defined statutory language related to retirement eligibility, including a provision that applicants must have at least five years of credited service and may be eligible at age 60 or "at any age if the terminated employee is a veteran who is totally and permanently disabled as defined by the Department of Veterans Affairs," per committee discussion.

Committee members questioned retirement staff about population size and fiscal impact. Brandon Roomsburg, retirement operations manager, told the committee the division does not currently track the exact number of members who meet the combined criteria and estimated roughly 48 members could potentially meet the qualifications; he said the division could provide a demographic breakdown on request. The retirement division provided an "indeterminate" fiscal note, and committee staff characterized the change as creating a potential additional unfunded liability for PERS because the division cannot determine exact cost without member-level data.

Several veterans and advocates provided invited and public testimony in support. Mark Weisenhunt, testifying as an individual, described his research using Veterans Affairs data to estimate the number of PERS members who might be totally and permanently disabled and argued that "allowing approximately 48 disabled veterans who have a significantly reduced life expectancy to access their hard earned retirement funds will in no way cause an undue hardship to the PERS system." Austin Flavin, a Palmer resident and Navy veteran, said he paid to buy back military service credits and described the bill as allowing veterans to access benefits they have already paid into.

Legal staff clarified drafting questions on the record. Dan Lane of Legislative Legal explained that the draft repeats the phrase "terminated employee" for drafting consistency and said the bill relies on the VA's existing definition for permanent and total disability rather than creating a new state definition.

Retirement staff said members who would qualify must be vested (at least five years) and that eligibility would generally apply principally to tiers where members could still be active (tier 2 and tier 3). The division indicated tier 2 closed on June 30, 1996, and tier 3 closed July 1, 2006; staff said the population affected is small and that multiple implementation details (including potential regulation updates) would follow committee action.

Committee action: the committee set HB17 aside for further consideration and established an amendment deadline of March 27 at 5:00 p.m.

Ending: Sponsors and supporting veterans urged the committee to advance the measure to remove barriers for a narrow class of totally and permanently disabled veterans; retirement staff cautioned the fiscal impact is indeterminate without more complete member-level data.