Mississippi Administrative Code
Title 27 - Personnel
Part 210 - PERS, Regulations for Retirement Plans Administered by the Board of Trustees
Chapter 61 - Compliance with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Requirements
Section 27-210-61-104 - Municipal Retirement Systems

1. The PERS Board shall hold the assets of the Municipal Retirement Systems in trust for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and paying reasonable expenses of administration. The assets of each municipal retirement system (including general municipal retirement funds as well as disability and relief funds for firemen and policemen) shall be maintained as separate funds, separate from all other funds held by the PERS Board and shall be used only for the payment of benefits provided by Miss. Code Ann. §§ 21-29-1 et seq., 21-29-101 et seq. and 21-29-201 et seq., (1972, as amended) respectively.

2. It shall be impossible by operation of the Municipal Retirement Systems, by termination, by power of revocation or amendment, by the happening of any contingency, by collateral arrangement or by other means, for any part of the corpus or income of the trust, or any funds contributed thereto, to inure to the benefit of any employer or otherwise be used for or diverted to purposes other than providing benefits to participants and beneficiaries and defraying reasonable expenses of administering the systems.

3. Benefits are provided in accordance with §§ 21-29-1 et seq., 21-29-101 et seq. and 21-29-201 et seq. respectively. Forfeitures of accrued benefits resulting from members electing to receive refunds of employee contributions will not be applied to increase the benefits any member would otherwise receive under these provisions.

4. Benefits payable pursuant to §§ 21-29-1 et seq., 21-29-101 et seq. and 21-29-201 et seq. respectively, shall be made in compliance with the limitations set forth in Section 415 of the Internal Revenue Code and any regulations issued there under as applicable to governmental plans. Further, distributions made from these plans shall conform to a good faith interpretation of Section 401(a)(9) of the Internal Revenue Code.

5. All members of the Municipal Retirement Systems who are not otherwise vested will be fully vested in their accrued benefit on attaining twenty (20) years of service with the municipality, the last ten (10) of which are continuous in the city in which retirement application is made.

(History: Adopted effective January 19, 2009; amended effective April 1, 2012)