(a) Amount of employer contributions.
(1) Group I participants. The County must contribute to the retirement savings plan in quarterly installments, on behalf of each Group I participant, an amount equal to 6 percent for service beginning on the first pay period after June 30, 2011 and 8 percent for service beginning on the first pay period after June 30, 2012 of that participant's regular earnings while a Group I participant during a plan year.
(2) Group II participants. The County must contribute to the retirement savings plan in quarterly installments, on behalf of each Group II participant, an amount equal to 8 percent for service beginning on the first pay period after June 30, 2011 and 10 percent for service beginning on the first pay period after June 30, 2012 of that participant's regular earnings while a Group II participant during a plan year.
(3) Group I and Group II. If during a plan year, the participant is a member of Group I for part of the plan year and a member of Group II for the remaining part of the plan year, the participant must receive a prorated employer contribution based on the number of months the participant qualified for each group.
(4) When a participant rejoins County service after military service that qualified under Section
33-119(b) as credited service, the County must contribute on behalf of the participant the amount that the County would have contributed if the participant had worked for the County during the period of military service.
(A) The County contributions must be based on the gross pay the participant would have earned during the period of military service. If this amount of gross pay is not reasonably ascertainable, the County contributions must be based on the participant’s average gross pay during a period immediately preceding military service. The averaging period is 12 months, or the full length of the participant’s County service, whichever is shorter.
(B) County contributions under this paragraph count toward the maximum annual contribution limits under the Internal Revenue Code for the year for which the contributions are made.
(C) The participant is not entitled to any retroactive allocation of forfeitures or any retroactive crediting of earnings because of employer contributions under this subparagraph.
(b) Treatment of employer contributions.
(1) The County must allocate the County contributions made on behalf of each participant to a County contributions account the Board establishes for that participant. In addition, amounts allocated to the County contributions account must be further allocated to sub-accounts to reflect the proportionate amount of each account invested in each of the applicable investment funds.
(2) As of each valuation date, the Board must value the County contributions account of each participant on a current market value basis by the participant.
(3) A participant who ends employment with the County and who is not vested in the County contributions account must forfeit the full account balance in the County contributions account. The Chief Administrative Officer must consider all forfeitures arising during the plan year under the retirement savings plan in determining the County contributions and must use the forfeitures as provided in Section
33-120(d)(3).
(c) Treatment of transferred employer contributions.
(1) For each employee who elects under Section
33-115(a)(2) or (3) to participate in the retirement savings plan, the Board must establish a separate employer transfer contributions account, or otherwise separately account, for employer contributions and interest transferred from the State of Maryland Retirement or Pension Systems to the Board under Section
33-115(a)(4). The Board must establish a subaccount of the account for each investment fund selected by the participant.
(2) The Chief Administrative Officer may direct the Board to merge the amount transferred under paragraph (1) with the participant's regular account. (1994 L.M.C., ch. 13, § 2; 1996 L.M.C., ch. 27, § 1; 1998 L.M.C., ch. 30, § 1; ; § 2; , § 1; , § 1.)
