“Public service” for purposes of this article means the following:

(a) The period of time an employee served the state, a school employer, or a contracting agency prior to becoming a member, when the service was rendered in a position in which the employee was excluded provided one of the following conditions is met:

(1) The position has since become subject to compulsory membership in this system.

(2) The employee was excluded because the employee was serving on a part-time basis.

(3) The employee was excluded because the employee failed to exercise the right to elect membership under this part.

(b) Employment in the State Emergency Relief Administration or the State Relief Administration, regardless of the source of the compensation paid for that employment.

(c) Employment as an academic employee of the University of California prior to October 1, 1963.

(d) Employment by the state in which the person was not eligible for membership in this system if the ineligibility was solely because his or her compensation was paid from other than state-controlled funds. However, time spent in work as a work relief recipient under programs such as, but not limited to, the Works Progress Administration, the Civil Works Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the National Youth Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, shall not constitute public service.

(e) Employment in a function formerly performed by a public agency other than a contracting agency and assumed by a contracting agency where the employees who performed those functions are or were transferred to or employed by the contracting agency without change in occupation or position.

(f) Civilian service as an employee or officer of an agency of the government of the United States that performed functions the same as or substantially similar to those performed by this state prior to January 1, 1942, and that were transferred from the state to that agency, including military service in any branch of the Armed Forces of the United States performed by an individual on military leave of absence from that federal employment, if all the following conditions exist:

(1) Prior to performing that federal service he or she was employed by the state.

(2) He or she was laid off from state service or would have been laid off if he or she had not been absent in military service because of the transfer of the functions of the state to an agency of the United States government.

(3) Subsequent to his or her layoff from state service he or she was employed by the United States government in an agency performing functions the same as or substantially similar to those of the state agency from which he or she was laid off.

(4) After his or her separation from federal service, he or she was employed by a state agency.

(5) In lieu of paragraphs (1), (2), and (3), the United States government pays to the state or an agency of the state, funds equal to contributions that would have been made by the state had the member been in state service for the period of his or her public service with respect to members who were not employed by the state prior to entering that federal employment or whose state service prior to entering that federal employment was terminated for reasons other than the transfer of the function.

(g) Employment in a district, prior to the time the district became a subsidiary district of a city, of a person who was employed by the city following the reorganization to render service to the district and who became a member in that employment.

(Amended by Stats. 2000, Ch. 489, Sec. 9. Effective January 1, 2001.)