TRS Staff Recommendations Approved by Sunset Commission

By Glenn Greenwood, TASPA Communications

The Texas Sunset Advisory Commission met on August 8 in Austin to review staff recommendations for the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS).

The Commission adopted all staff recommendations but one. The recommendation not adopted would have required TRS to give service credits in half-year increments instead of the current method of granting only full-year service credits. As the rule currently stands, an employee covered by TRS can earn a full-year of service credit by working four and one-half months. The recommendation not adopted would have given the same employee only a partial-year service credit.

The statutory recommendations adopted by the Commission were as follows:

• Require TRS to implement local, in-person benefits counseling, without requiring employees to travel to Austin for retirement counseling.
• Require 403(b) companies to register products for sale to Texas educators.
• Require TRS to list on their website all registered 403(b) products offered for sale to Texas educators and their fees. Grant TRS a greater range of oversight tools, including suspension and administrative penalty authority.
• Repeal of the requirement for TRS to conduct the Public School Employees’ Health Coverage Comparability Study.

The TRS is scheduled for Sunset Review during the 80th Texas Legislature in 2007. The expectation is that the recommendations adopted at this meeting of the Sunset Commission will be included in that legislation.

The full report made by the Sunset Commission regarding TRS is available for downloading as a PDF file.

Back to the front page