Title 16, Education

§ 1932. Date of establishment; power and privileges; name A retirement system is hereby established and placed under the management of the Board of Trustees of the System for the purpose of providing retirement allowances and other benefits under the provisions of this chapter fo…

§ 1933. Members generally (a) Membership in the System shall be a condition of employment for all teachers. A person shall not join the System as a Group A member. A person shall not join the system as a Group B member after June 30, 1990. A service shall not be included in the c…

§ 1935. Teachers in certain public or independent schools (a) The Board of Trustees may designate certain public or independent schools, which are located within the State, and supported wholly or in part by the State but which are not under the control of the State Board of Educ…

§ 1936. Creditable service; military service (a) Each member shall receive membership service credit for all service rendered while a member of the System since he or she became a member, or since he or she last became a member in the event of a break in his or her membership. (b…

§ 1937. Service retirement (a) Upon written application to the Board not later than 90 days, or longer for good cause shown, after the date upon which the retirement allowance is to begin: (1) any Group A member may retire on a service retirement allowance on the first day of the…

§ 1938. Disability retirement (a) Upon notice not later than 90 days subsequent to the date the member may have separated from service, any member who has had five or more years of creditable service and has served as a teacher in the State during the five years immediately prece…

§ 1938a. Benefit denial; evidentiary hearing (a) An applicant for disability retirement benefits under section 1938 of this title may file a request for an evidentiary hearing with the Board of Trustees if the application for benefits is denied. (b) The hearing shall be conducted…

§ 1939. Restoration to service (a) In any fiscal year in which a beneficiary resumes service, as that term is defined in section 1931 of this title, he or she shall again become a member of the System, shall contribute at the rate established for members of his or her group and s…

§ 1940. Termination of service; death; refund; pension (a)(1) Upon the withdrawal of a member from service prior to retirement, the amount of the member’s accumulated contributions, less not more than one-third of the regular interest credited thereon as determined by the Board, …

§ 1941. Optional benefits (a)(1) On or before the 15th day of the calendar month in which the first payment on account of a retirement allowance becomes normally due, but not later than the date on which the payment becomes normally due, each member shall elect to receive the mem…

§ 1942. Board of Trustees; Medical Board; actuary; rate of contribution; safekeeping of securities (a) The general administration and the responsibility for the proper operation of the System and for making effective the provisions of this chapter are hereby vested in the Board o…

§ 1943. Investments; interest rate; disbursements; standards of conduct (a) The members of the Vermont Pension Investment Commission established in 3 V.S.A. chapter 17 shall be the trustees of the Pension Fund created by this chapter, and with respect to them may invest and reinv…

§ 1943a. Compliance with federal law (a) Intent. The General Assembly intends that the Retirement System and any trusts or custodial accounts established to hold the assets of the Retirement System in accordance with subsection (b) of this section be maintained, in form and opera…

§ 1944. Vermont Teachers’ Retirement Fund (a) Pension Fund. All of the assets of the System shall be credited to the Vermont Teachers’ Retirement Fund. (b) Member contributions. (1) Contributions deducted from the compensation of members shall be accumulated in the Pension Fund a…

§ 1944a. Periodic actuarial reports The Board shall cause to be made an actuarial reevaluation of the rate of member contributions deducted from earnable compensation pursuant to subdivision 1944(b)(2) of this title, on a periodic basis at least every three years, to determine wh…

§ 1944b. Retired Teachers’ Health And Medical Benefits Fund (a) There is established the Retired Teachers’ Health and Medical Benefits Fund (Benefits Fund) to pay retiree postemployment benefits when due in accordance with the terms established by the Board of Trustees of the Sta…

§ 1944c. Employer charges for federal grants or reimbursements (a) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, effective on July 1, 2015, the employer retirement costs and administrative operating expenses related to the retirement plans applicable to those teachers who…

§ 1944d. Employer annual charge for teacher health care (a) Beginning on July 1, 2018, the employer of teachers who become members of the State Teachers’ Retirement System of Vermont on or after July 1, 2015 shall pay an annual assessment of $1,275.00 for each such teacher to the…

§ 1944e. Retired teachers health and medical benefits (a) Payment of a portion of the cost of health and medical benefits provided by subsection 1942(p) of this title for retired members and their dependents shall be made from the Benefits Fund. The Board shall determine the tota…

§ 1945. Application of other laws No other provision of law in any other statute that provides wholly or partly at the expense of the State of Vermont for pensions or retirement benefits for teachers of the State, their widows, or other dependents, shall apply to members or benef…

§ 1946. Exemption of member’s interest; assignment That portion of the compensation of a member deducted or to be deducted under this chapter, the rights of a member or beneficiary to an annuity, pension, or retirement allowance hereunder, and all a member’s rights in the assets …

§ 1946a. Tax exemption for member of retirement system of another state or political subdivision thereof Payments received by a member of a retirement system of another state or political subdivision thereof, whether called a pension, an annuity, a retirement allowance, or any ot…

§ 1946b. Alternate payee; domestic relations orders (a) As used in this section: (1) “Alternate payee” means any individual who is recognized by a domestic relations order as having a right to receive all, or a portion of, another individual’s payment rights in the System. (2) “D…

§ 1947. Penalty Whoever with intent to deceive shall make any statements or reports required under this chapter that are untrue, or shall falsify or permit to be falsified any record or records of the System, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punishable therefor under…

§ 1948. Errors Should any mistake be made, or should any change or error in the records result in any member or beneficiary receiving from the System more or less than he or she would have been entitled to receive had the records been correct, the Board shall have the power, in i…

§ 1949. Postretirement adjustments to retirement allowances (a) Postretirement adjustments to retirement allowance. On January 1 of each year, the retirement allowance of each beneficiary of the System who is in receipt of a retirement allowance for at least a one-year period as …

§ 1949a. Postretirement adjustment allowance account (a) Intent. It is the intent of the General Assembly to recognize members who are in active service on or before June 30, 2022 and made contributions for the duration of fiscal year 2023 and members who are in active service on…

§ 1949b. Postretirement adjustment to retirement allowance; formula; evaluation (a) On or before September 1, 2027 and every three years thereafter, or at the request of the Board in conjunction with any proposed changes to the amortization schedule, the Board shall consider the …

§ 1951. Group A members; limit on contributions Contributions in the form of a deduction from compensation under section 1944 of this title shall cease for any Group A member who attains 25 years of creditable service and the member shall continue to accrue creditable service, wi…

§ 1953. Prior service credit A teacher who has ceased being a member upon reemployment is entitled to prior service credit upon depositing in the Pension Fund the contributions that would have been deducted from the teacher’s compensation had he or she remained a member with inte…

§ 1981. Definitions As used in this chapter unless the context requires otherwise: (1) “Administrator” means any person so licensed by the Vermont Standards Board for professional educators, the majority of whose employed time in a school or a school district is devoted to servin…

§ 1982. Rights (a) Teachers shall have the right to or not to join, assist, or participate in any teachers’ organization of their choosing. However, teachers who choose not to join the teachers’ organization, recognized as the exclusive representative pursuant to section 1992 of …

§ 1983. Right to be heard Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit any individual or organization representative, subject to reasonable rules of procedure that may be adopted by the school board, from appearing before the school board to be heard, but not to negotiate, on any matte…

§ 1984. Access to new teachers or administrators in bargaining unit (a) A school board shall provide a teachers’ or administrators’ organization that is the exclusive representative of the teachers or administrators in a bargaining unit with an opportunity to meet with each newly…

§ 1985. Annual list of teachers or administrators in bargaining unit (a) Annually, or on a more frequent basis if mutually agreed to by the school board and the teachers’ or administrators’ organization, the school board shall provide the teachers’ or administrators’ organization…

§ 1986. Noninterference with right to testify (a) Subject to subsection (b) of this section, no teacher, administrator, or other employee of a school district or supervisory union shall be subject to discipline by the school district or supervisory union for testifying before the…

§ 1991. Selection of representation (a) Teachers and administrators may select organizations to represent them on their negotiations council in collective negotiations with the school board negotiations council. The school board shall recognize an organization as the exclusive re…

§ 1992. Referendum procedure for representation (a)(1) An organization purporting to represent a majority of all of the teachers or administrators employed by the school board may be recognized by the school board without the necessity of a referendum upon the submission of a pet…

§ 2001. Good faith The negotiations councils of the school board and of the recognized teachers’ or administrators’ organization shall meet together at reasonable times, upon request of either party, and shall negotiate in good faith on all matters properly before them under the …

§ 2002. Access to materials and facilities The school board shall permit teachers, administrators, and their respective organizations access at reasonable times to areas in which teachers and administrators work, and to use institutional bulletin boards, mail boxes, or other comm…

§ 2003. Time to begin The teacher or administrator organizations holding exclusive negotiating rights shall make a request for commencement of negotiations either to their school board or to the school board negotiations council no later than 120 days prior to the earliest school…

§ 2004. Agenda (a) The school board, through its negotiations council, shall, upon request, negotiate with representatives of the teachers’ or administrators’ organization negotiations council on matters of salary, related economic conditions of employment, the manner in which it…

§ 2005. Written agreement The negotiations councils for the school board and the teachers’ or administrators’ organization shall enter into a written agreement or agreements incorporating matters agreed to in negotiation. The written agreement shall incorporate by reference the t…

§ 2006. Mediator If, after negotiation has taken place on all matters properly before them, the negotiations councils for the school board and teachers’ or administrators’ organization are unable to reach agreement on specific negotiable items, they may jointly agree upon the ser…

§ 2007. Fact-finding committee (a) If mediation fails to resolve outstanding differences or is not requested and a continuing disagreement persists, either party may, after negotiation on all matters properly before them, request that any or all unresolved issues be submitted to …

§ 2008. Finality of decisions All decisions of the school board regarding matters in dispute in negotiations shall, after full compliance with this chapter, be final. (Added 1969, No. 127, § 2, eff. Sept. 1, 1969.)