West Virginia Senate Bill SB874

West Virginia 2025 Regular Session

• Introduced: 3/21/25
• Refer: 3/21/25
• Refer: 3/24/25
• Engrossed: 3/29/25
• Refer: 3/31/25

Caption

Permitting current home confinement officers to participate in Emergency Medical Services Retirement System

Summary

SB 874 expands the West Virginia Emergency Medical Services Retirement System to include full-time county home confinement officers. The bill amends definitions in the EMS retirement law to add home confinement officers as covered employees and members, and it creates a new section governing how current officers may join the system, how prior service is credited, and how retirement contributions and assets are transferred from the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). For officers employed on July 1, 2025, the bill requires an irrevocable written election by August 29, 2025, to transfer into the EMS retirement plan. It also covers officers previously employed before July 1, 2025, who are rehired, allowing prior service to count if their PERS contributions were not withdrawn. The bill sets out detailed actuarial procedures for transferring each participating officer’s share of PERS assets into the EMS trust fund, establishes a 2 percent benefit multiplier for transferred service unless additional amounts are repaid to qualify for a 2.75 percent multiplier, and allows retirement for transferring officers to begin on or after April 1, 2026.

Impact

The bill changes state retirement law by adding home confinement officers to the class of public employees eligible for membership in the Emergency Medical Services Retirement System and by creating a new transfer mechanism from PERS to the EMS system. It affects the Consolidated Public Retirement Board, county sheriffs’ offices, county commissions, and home confinement officers, while also altering how credited service, contributions, and retirement benefits are calculated for affected employees. The measure includes deadlines, actuarial valuation rules, and asset-transfer procedures that will govern the movement of retirement liabilities and assets between the two systems.

Sentiment

The available voting history shows strong support for the bill: it passed the Senate unanimously, 31-0, and was made effective July 1, 2025. No committee transcript excerpts were provided, so there is no recorded floor or committee debate in the supplied materials. The vote pattern suggests broad agreement that the bill is a targeted retirement-system adjustment for a specific class of county public safety employees.

Contention

No formal opposition is reflected in the provided vote record, but the bill’s most likely points of contention are the retirement cost and transfer mechanics. The legislation requires actuarial calculations, asset transfers from PERS, and different benefit multipliers depending on whether an officer repays the difference needed to receive the higher 2.75 percent rate. Potentially affected parties include home confinement officers deciding whether to transfer, the Consolidated Public Retirement Board administering the change, and PERS stakeholders concerned with the valuation and transfer of assets and liabilities.