Terminating the Employment Relationship

After issuing the Notice of Intent, the employer must provide pre-termination appeal rights akin to Skelly rights, i.e., the employee must have an opportunity to respond to the notice in person or in writing. After the employee responds, a final written decision must be issued. The employee must have the opportunity to appeal the final notice and is entitled to a full evidentiary hearing. An important note of caution for California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“PERS”) and County Employees’ Retirement Law (“CERL” or “’37 Act”) employers, as discussed below, a PERS employer cannot separate an employee who is vested for the purposes of a disability retirement without first applying for a disability retirement. As a result, retirement final separation should not be effective until a decision has been made on the employee’s application for disability retirement.

R ETIREMENT AND R ETIREMENT I NCENTIVES

Section 5

A. D ISABILITY R ETIREMENT Effectuating a disability retirement can be an arduous, complex, and confusing process. This is especially true where the employee at issue is a local safety member. This portion of the workbook is designed to provide an overview and basic procedures for handling a disability retirement.

1. R ETIREMENT S YSTEM O VERVIEW

a. Public Employees’ Retirement System Many public agencies in California contract with the Public Employees’ Retirement System (“PERS”) to administer the retirement benefits for their employees. The Public Employees’ Retirement Law (Gov. Code, §§ 20000, et seq .) (“the PERL”) is the statutory framework that sets forth the rights and obligations of PERS toward its members (both state employees and eligible employees of contracting agencies - those local agencies that have contracted with PERS for retirement purposes). Once a local agency contracts with PERS to provide retirement benefits for its employees, the local agency becomes subject to the PERL’s obligations as well. Disability retirement benefits are one of the benefits provided under the PERL for PERS members. b. County Employees Retirement System Many counties (and some special districts within those counties) administer their own retirement systems pursuant to the County Employees Retirement Law (Gov. Code, §§ 31200, et seq ., the “CERL” or “’37 Act”). Disability retirement benefits are one of the benefits provided under the ’37 Act. The CERL and PERL have many similarities regarding disability retirement issues. To the extent the CERL significantly differs from the PERL on an issue, the difference will be discussed herein.

Terminating the Employment Relationship ©2019 (s) Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 56