The contract may include any provisions consistent with this part and necessary in the administration of this system as it affects the public agency and its employees.

Whenever in this part an election is given to contracting agencies to subject themselves and their employees to provisions of this part otherwise not applicable to contracting agencies and their employees by amendment to their contracts with the board, any contract made after the effective date of the provision giving the election may include any provisions necessary to give effect to the election of the contracting agency.

Contracts with school employers may include school district employees in this system only with respect to service rendered in a status in which they are not eligible for membership in the State Teachers’ Retirement Plan.

such as departments or duties, and not on individual employees.

2021.

Notwithstanding Section 20055, a contracting agency may amend its contract to remove exclusions prospectively only, and without creating liability for prior service.

Notwithstanding Section 20055, a contracting agency, which is a reciprocal system pursuant to Section 20351, may amend its contract to remove an exclusion of groups of employees of the reciprocal system who elect to become members of this system prospectively only. The amendment shall not create liability for prior service.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, every employee who enters or reenters service with a contracting agency on and after January 1, 1992, shall immediately become a member of this system irrespective of any probationary period, if the employee would otherwise be eligible for membership. This system shall not exclude employees, or groups of employees, solely on the basis of their status as probationary employees.

Any contract heretofore or hereafter entered into shall subject the contracting agency and its employees to all provisions of this part and all amendments thereto applicable to members, local miscellaneous members, or local safety members except those provisions that are expressly inapplicable to a contracting agency until it elects to be subject to those provisions.

A contracting agency whose contract is effective on and after January 1, 1974, that does not become an employer for purposes of Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 20790), or a contracting agency that ceases to be an employer, shall be subject to all provisions of the retirement law as it exists on the date of contract or on the date a contracting agency ceases to be an employer, whichever the case may be, and as it may be amended thereafter excepting the provisions of Chapter 9, other than Section 20834, and those amendments thereafter as are expressly made inapplicable to a contracting agency until the agency elects to be subject thereto.

When a contracting agency is succeeded by another agency, whether or not the former agency ceases to exist, or when the functions of a contracting agency are assumed by a succeeding agency, the succeeding agency, may, if it is not already a contracting agency, become a contracting agency of this system. If a succeeding agency is or becomes a contracting agency, the contract of the former agency shall be merged into the contract of the succeeding agency.

Whenever there is a merger of contracts pursuant to this section, whether in whole or in part, the assumed contracts, or portions thereof, of the former agency’s contract shall cease to exist and the contract of the succeeding agency shall be deemed a continuation of the prior agency’s contract. However, any changes in contract terms in the succeeding agency’s contract with respect to employees of the former agency shall be considered as a new contract with respect to those provisions.

Accumulated contributions held for or made by the former agency and its employees, and assets derived from those contributions, shall be merged with analogous contributions under the contract of the succeeding agency. Credit for prior and current service to members under the former agency’s contract, which accrued while they were eligible for membership, shall not be reduced by the merger. Employees of a noncontracting public agency included in the succeeding agency contract shall become members in the manner applicable to employees of other contracting agencies and shall receive credit for service accordingly.

The liability to this system with respect to service credited under the former agency’s contract shall become a contractual liability of the succeeding agency. The former and succeeding agencies may agree to apportion and adjust between them any payments with respect to service credit liability. However, no agreement shall operate to defeat the liability of the succeeding agency with respect to that service.

A successor agency, pursuant to Section 20508, for the El Dorado County Fire Protection District and the Diamond Springs-El Dorado Fire Protection District may provide employees the defined benefit plan or formula that those employees received from their respective employer prior to the annexation.

A successor agency, pursuant to Section 20508, for the Humboldt No. 1 Fire Protection District and City of Eureka Fire Department may provide employees the defined benefit plan or formula that those employees received from their respective employer prior to the annexation. This section is applicable to all employees of the Humboldt No. 1 Fire Protection District who were employed at the time of annexation and remain employed at the successor agency on January 1, 2026.

On and after June 30, 2020, a successor agency, pursuant to Section 20508, for the Central Fire Protection District and the Aptos/La Selva Fire Protection District may provide employees the defined benefit plan or formula that those employees received from their respective employer prior to the consolidation. The successor agency shall designate the surviving contract within 180 days of the consolidation.

When a school district ceases to exist and is succeeded by, or the territory thereof is attached to, another school district that is a contracting agency, the contract under which the contracting agency participates in this system shall be considered, with respect to the former district and its employees, a continuation of the contract under which the former district participated, with the changes as the succeeding contract contains. The board shall determine the amount of accumulated contributions held under the contract of the county superintendent of schools which had been made by the former district, and the contributions shall be transferred to the credit of the contract under which the succeeding district participates.

Nothing in this section or Section 20508 shall authorize a school district, the formation of which becomes effective for all purposes after October 1, 1961, to participate in this system except as provided in Chapter 6 (commencing with Section 20610).

When a hospital becomes a contracting agency pursuant to subdivision (p) of Section 20057, the contract shall be construed as a continuation of the city’s contract for all purposes of this part, and the sponsoring city, the hospital, and the board shall enter into an agreement under the terms of which hospital employees shall retain, under the hospital’s contract, all of the retirement rights and benefits that have accrued to them under the city’s contract. The board shall compute the unpaid costs, if any, of the accrued rights and benefits, and the city shall pay to the board that amount in a manner and at times satisfactory to all parties to the agreement. Thereafter, the city shall be relieved and discharged from all liabilities on account of rights and benefits that have accrued to the hospital employees, and the hospital shall then become liable for those rights and benefits under its contract with the board.

On and after the effective date of the hospital’s contract with the board, neither the city nor the hospital shall be an employer as defined in Section 20790.

All employees of the city who have retired or separated from employment prior to the effective date of the hospital’s contract shall be treated as retired city employees or former city employees, as the case may be, for all purposes of this part, whether or not they ever worked in the hospital.

Notwithstanding this article or Article 5 (commencing with Section 20570), when all or a portion of one agency’s contract is merged into that of another, the retirement allowances may be computed separately for service under the former contract and service under the succeeding contract. In these cases, a transferred member shall be subject to the terms and conditions of the succeeding agency’s contract as the member was a new employee of the succeeding agency at the time of transfer.

Furthermore, when all or a portion of one agency’s contract is merged into that of another, and when eligibility for membership is different between the two contracts, the differences shall not create prior service liabilities as against either agency, and transferred members shall not be entitled under either contract to credit for service rendered when they were not eligible for membership.

Whenever in this part an election is given to contracting agencies to subject themselves and their employees to provisions of this part otherwise not applicable to contracting agencies and their employees, a contracting agency may exercise the right of election independently with respect to its employees included in the insurance system established under Title II of the Social Security Act and with respect to its employees not so included and with respect to those employees who are local police officers, local firefighters, county peace officers, local safety members other than local police officers or local firefighters or county peace officers, and local miscellaneous members.

Notwithstanding the election given in Section 20514 to contracting agencies, whether to subject themselves and their employees thereto, the contract of school districts in which the average daily attendance of all districts combined is in excess of 400,000 and which are governed by the same governing board, without action by the governing board, shall be subject to that section and shall include all provisions authorized by Section 20514 to be included therein by contract amendment.

If the effective date of coverage under the federal system of members who are employees of a contracting agency under this system is prior to the time employee federal contributions are first deducted from the salaries and wages of the employees and a reduced benefit is provided with respect to service from and after the effective date of coverage, member contributions shall be transferred in the manner and to the extent provided in this section to the Old Age and Survivors’ Insurance Revolving Fund and applied to payment of employee federal contributions for the period prior to the deductions.

There shall be transferred from the member’s accumulated contributions an amount equal to employee federal contributions due for the member. The amount so transferred shall not exceed the difference between the total normal contributions of the member and the normal contributions that would have been credited to his or her account had the reduced rate of contribution provided in the amended contract with the public agency been in effect from and after the effective date of coverage, assuming that contributions in any year were made in equal monthly installments.

The amount by which the retroactive employee contributions due for a member exceeds the amount transferred from the employee account shall be transmitted to the fund by the contracting agency and constitute an indebtedness of the member to the employer and a lien on any salary or wages payable to the employee or on his or her account.

If the contract is or has been amended to provide for the transfer of retroactive employee contributions in the manner provided in this section, the amount by which the total normal contributions of each member for the period subsequent to the effective date of coverage under the federal system less the total normal contributions that would have been credited to the account of the member had the reduced rate of contribution provided in the amended contract with the public agency been in effect from and after that date of coverage exceed the employee federal contributions for the member for the period after the date of coverage, shall be paid to the member.

members or the methodology for calculating that cost-sharing rate. The member contributions shall be contributions over and above normal contributions otherwise required by this part and shall be treated as normal contributions for all purposes of this part. The contributions shall be uniform, except as described in subdivision (c), with respect to all members within each of the following classifications: local miscellaneous members, local police officers, local firefighters, county peace officers, and all local safety members other than local police officers, local firefighters, and county peace officers. The balance of any costs shall be paid by the contracting agency and shall be credited to the employer’s account. An employer shall not use impasse procedures to impose member cost sharing on any contribution amount above that which is authorized by law.

amendments shall not be required to effectuate cost sharing in subsequent collective bargaining agreements or memoranda of understanding ratified by the employee bargaining unit and the governing body of the agency; provided, however, that if a collective bargaining agreement or memorandum of understanding sets forth a methodology for calculating the cost-sharing rate instead of an exact percentage, the contracting agency shall provide the retirement system with a signed side letter ratified by the employee bargaining unit and the agency indicating the exact percentage at least 90 days prior to the effective date of the cost-sharing rate as set forth in the signed side letter.

section, all contributions, liabilities, actuarial interest rates, and other valuation factors shall be determined on the basis of actuarial assumptions and methods that, in the aggregate, are reasonable and that, in combination, offer the actuary’s best estimate of anticipated experience under this system.

approve the agreement.

safety members other than police officers, firefighters, and county peace officers.