Senate pensions committee presses for data after hearing on letting small towns join police and fire pension plan

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Senate Pensions Committee on Feb. 25 discussed Senate Bill 1,076, a proposal to allow municipalities that are not in state-administered retirement plans to elect to join the Municipal Police Officers and Firefighters retirement system. Committee counsel said the change would let those local police and firefighters participate in the state system but would not transfer credit for prior service, meaning new entrants would be treated as new hires.

Committee counsel explained the mechanics: "This bill would allow municipalities that are not currently participating in any state retirement plan ... to elect to become participating employers in the municipal police officers and firefighters retirement system, which would put their police officers and firefighters in that plan," and noted the bill will receive a second reference to the Finance Committee.

Why it matters: officials and actuaries told senators they lack the concrete lists and demographic data needed to price the change. Ken Woodson, the Consolidated Public Retirement Board actuary, said staff has not received a full list of affected participants and estimated there are about 60 municipalities that might be involved. "We don't know the full number of participants that would be involved," Woodson said, explaining that accrued liability depends on prior service and that entrants coming in with no transferred service start with zero accrued liability but can raise the plan's normal cost over time depending on their ages and numbers.

Woodson stressed that age matters for cost: older entrants with fewer future years of contributions can raise the plan's normal cost, especially if hundreds of older employees enter relative to the existing active population. "If you take 200 of them coming in ... which is a pretty significant percentage of the active population ... you're blending those two groups," he said.

Jeff Fleck, executive director of the Consolidated Public Retirement Board, said outreach through the Municipal League produced a preliminary list of about 60 municipalities with no participation in CPRB or the Municipal Pension Oversight Board, but many municipalities did not respond to the league's inquiry. "We got a list from them and there were about 60 that did not have either CPRB retirement system or Municipal Pension Oversight Board," Fleck said, adding that sample data from Ranson showed about a dozen police and fire personnel with more than half over age 50.

Blair Taylor, executive director of the Municipal Pension Oversight Board, provided historical context: since the oversight board was created in 2009, municipalities generally cannot create new municipal pension plans, which concentrates options into existing state-administered systems. Taylor warned many small municipalities are not civil-service based and therefore have no age-at-hire guardrails; rehiring of retirees in small towns can produce an older cohort. "No city, no municipality has the authority to create a brand new policeman's pension plan that's municipal based ... because we've closed the ability for municipalities to be able to do that," Taylor said.

Committee members asked whether municipalities or officers could be required to buy in to offset actuarial costs and whether legal changes would be necessary to permit buy-ins. Counsel and CPRB staff said the answers depend on plan rules and legal frameworks and that further information from the Municipal League and direct municipal surveys would be needed to estimate costs accurately.

Outcome and next steps: the committee asked staff to pursue more complete participant lists, age and count data, and actuarial modeling before deciding on a study or moving the bill forward. No formal committee vote was recorded on SB 1,076 before members adjourned.