A. The Board of Trustees of the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System shall have the responsibility for management of the Uniform Retirement System for Justices and Judges and the State Judicial Retirement Fund. All benefits payable under The Uniform Retirement System for Justices and Judges, refunds of contributions and overpayments, purchases or investments under the law, and all expenses in connection with the System shall be paid from the Oklahoma Judicial Retirement Fund. The State Judicial Retirement Fund shall be invested and managed in the same manner as now or hereinafter provided by law for the investment and management of funds belonging to the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System. The Uniform Retirement System for Justices and Judges shall be an instrumentality of the State of Oklahoma. The System shall be vested with the powers and duties specified in this act and such other powers as may be necessary to enable it, its officers, employees, and agents to carry out fully and effectively the purposes and intent of this act.

1. The Board shall distribute the corpus and income of the System to the members and their beneficiaries in accordance with the System’s law. At no time prior to the satisfaction of all liabilities with respect to members and their beneficiaries shall any part of the corpus and income be used for, or diverted to, purposes other than the exclusive benefit of the members and their beneficiaries.

2. The Board may not engage in a transaction prohibited by Section 503(b) of the federal Internal Revenue Code.

3. The Board shall be responsible for the policies and rules for the general administration of the System, subject to the provisions of this act. Except as specifically provided in this act, the Uniform Retirement System for Justices and Judges shall generally be managed in the same manner as now or hereinafter provided by law or by rule for the management of the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System.

4. The Board shall establish rules for the administration of the System and for the transaction of its business consistent with law, which rules shall be promulgated in compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act.

5. The Board may adopt all necessary actuarial tables to be used in the operation of the System as recommended by the actuary and may compile such additional data as may be necessary for required actuarial valuation calculations.

6. All decisions of the Board as to questions of fact shall be final and conclusive on all persons except for the right of review as provided by law and except for fraud or such gross mistake of fact as to have effect equivalent to fraud.

7. Any person who shall knowingly make any false statement, or who shall falsify or permit to be falsified any record necessary for carrying out the intent of this act for the purpose of committing fraud, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine not exceeding Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) or by imprisonment for not exceeding one (1) year. Should any error in any records of the Uniform Retirement System for Justices and Judges result in any member or beneficiary receiving more or less than he or she would have been entitled to receive had the records been correct, the Board shall correct such error, and, as far as practicable, make future payments in such manner that the actuarial equivalent of the benefit to which such member or beneficiary was entitled shall be paid, and to this end, may recover any overpayments.

B. The Board of Trustees of the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System shall compile a quarterly financial report of all the funds of the State Judicial Retirement Fund on a fiscal year basis. The report shall be compiled pursuant to uniform reporting standards prescribed by the Oklahoma State Pension Commission for all state retirement systems. The report shall include several relevant measures of investment value, including acquisition cost and current fair market value with appropriate summaries of total holdings and returns. The report shall contain combined and individual rate of returns of the investment managers by category of investment, over periods of time. The Board of Trustees shall include in the quarterly reports all commissions, fees or payments for investment services performed on behalf of the Board of Trustees with respect to the State Judicial Retirement Fund. The report shall be distributed to the Governor, the Oklahoma State Pension Commission, the Legislative Service Bureau, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. In lieu of compiling and distributing the quarterly report, the Board may provide the Pension Commission with direct access to the same data from the custodian bank for the System.

C. There is hereby created the Retirement Medical Benefit Fund. The fund shall be maintained as a subaccount of the State Judicial Retirement Fund. The Retirement Medical Benefit Fund is composed of all assets which may be contributed to this subaccount to pay the retirement system’s portion of the monthly retiree health insurance premium benefit described by Section 1316.2 of Title 74 of the Oklahoma Statutes. All such allocated assets and any earnings thereon in the Retirement Medical Benefit Fund shall be held for the exclusive purpose of providing retiree medical benefits. The Retirement Medical Benefit Fund is to be administered in accordance with the requirements of Section 401(h) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended from time to time. The Board of Trustees may promulgate such rules as are necessary to implement the funding and administration of the fund pursuant to the provisions of this subsection.

D. After July 1 and before December 1 of each year, the Board of Trustees of the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System shall publish widely an annual report presented in simple and easily understood language pursuant to uniform reporting standards prescribed by the Oklahoma State Pension Commission for all state retirement systems. The report shall be submitted to the Governor, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Oklahoma State Pension Commission and the members of the System. The annual report shall cover the operation of the System during the past fiscal year, including income, disbursements, and the financial condition of the System at the end of the fiscal year. The annual report shall also contain the information issued in the quarterly reports required pursuant to subsection B of this section as well as a summary of the results of the most recent actuarial valuation to include total assets, total liabilities, unfunded liability or overfunded status, contributions and any other information deemed relevant by the Board of Trustees. The annual report shall be written in such a manner as to permit a readily understandable means for analyzing the financial condition and performance of the System for the fiscal year.

E. The Board shall adopt a cost of living adjustment actuarial assumption in its annual actuarial valuation report.

Added by Laws 1969, c. 328, § 4, emerg. eff. May 7, 1969. Amended by Laws 1983, c. 6, § 1, emerg. eff. Feb. 24, 1983; Laws 1988, c. 321, § 19, operative July 1, 1988; Laws 1995, c. 81, § 3, eff. July 1, 1995; Laws 1996, c. 55, § 1, eff. July 1, 1996; Laws 1999, c. 257, § 20, eff. July 1, 1999; Laws 2002, c. 391, § 5, eff. July 1, 2002; Laws 2003, c. 406, § 15, eff. July 1, 2003; Laws 2004, c. 536, § 12, eff. July 1, 2004; Laws 2008, c. 415, § 11, eff. July 1, 2008; Laws 2011, c. 379, § 4, eff. Sept. 1, 2011.