Sec. 66.  PROTECTED BENEFITS UNDER CERTAIN PUBLIC RETIREMENT SYSTEMS.  (a) This section applies only to a public retirement system that is not a statewide system and that provides service and disability retirement benefits and death benefits to public officers and employees.
(b)  This section does not apply to a public retirement system that provides service and disability retirement benefits and death benefits to firefighters and police officers employed by the City of San Antonio.
(c)  This section does not apply to benefits that are:
(1)  health benefits;
(2)  life insurance benefits; or
(3)  disability benefits that a retirement system determines are no longer payable under the terms of the retirement system as those terms existed on the date the retirement system began paying the disability benefits.
(d)  On or after the effective date of this section, a change in service or disability retirement benefits or death benefits of a retirement system may not reduce or otherwise impair benefits accrued by a person if the person:
(1)  could have terminated employment or has terminated employment before the effective date of the change; and
(2)  would have been eligible for those benefits, without accumulating additional service under the retirement system, on any date on or after the effective date of the change had the change not occurred.
(e)  Benefits granted to a retiree or other annuitant before the effective date of this section and in effect on that date may not be reduced or otherwise impaired.
(f)  The political subdivision or subdivisions and the retirement system that finance benefits under the retirement system are jointly responsible for ensuring that benefits under this section are not reduced or otherwise impaired.
(g)  This section does not create a liability or an obligation to a retirement system for a member of the retirement system other than the payment by active members of a required contribution or a future required contribution to the retirement system.
(h)  A retirement system described by Subsection (a) and the political subdivision or subdivisions that finance benefits under the retirement system are exempt from the application of this section if:
(1)  the political subdivision or subdivisions hold an election on the date in May 2004 that political subdivisions may use for the election of their officers;
(2)  the majority of the voters of a political subdivision voting at the election favor exempting the political subdivision and the retirement system from the application of this section; and
(3)  the exemption is the only issue relating to the funding and benefits of the retirement system that is presented to the voters at the election.  
(Former Sec. 66 repealed Nov. 2, 1999; current Sec. 66 added Sept. 13, 2003.)