FROM: Barbara Hannah, Chief Counsel
SUBJECT: Disability Retirement Procedures
RECOMMENDATION:
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Approve and adopt the proposed changes to the Procedures for Disability Retirement Applications and Formal Hearings.
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BACKGROUND:
Staff has been programmatically evaluating its disability processes, metrics regarding processing times, and opportunities for improvement in the member service experience. Staff will provide a high-level overview of efforts and results to date to the Committee; attached as Exhibit "B" is a summary slide deck which discusses personnel and other programmatic changes which have taken place in the last year.
As a part of the programmatic review process, staff identified a series of opportunities to make changes in the process, which are further identified and discussed below. SBCERA adopted the Procedures for Disability Retirement Applications and Formal Hearings ("Rules") to govern the disability retirement process. Since the last update in September 2016, there are matters that have arisen which are not addressed in the Rules, specific Rules that may require an update, and requests from the Board to revisit specific Rules, such as the time limits for presentations. On July 18, 2019, the Administrative Committee reviewed and provided input on a series of potential changes to the Rules, and directed that staff bring those changes back in a redlined version of the Rules for consideration by the Committee and ultimately, by the Board.
Accordingly, attached as Exhibit "A" is a redlined version of the Rules which incorporates the edits discussed in the July 18, 2019 Administrative Committee meeting as well as other non-substantive edits. In summary, the substantive edits are as follows:
A. Formal Hearing - Expand the Subject Matter Jurisdiction. (Rule 5)
Currently, the formal hearing is reserved exclusively for matters in which the Board has denied a benefit request by a disability retirement applicant. However, th...
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