§449. Deferred Retirement Option Plan

A. The system shall establish a Deferred Retirement Option Plan which shall be a part of the system fund. While participating in the plan, participants' contributions shall be credited to subaccounts as established in this Section.

(1) The contributing period shall mean that time period when funds are being credited to the participant's subaccount maintained by the system.

(2) After the contributing period ends, the balance of the subaccount shall then be transferred to the self-directed subaccount, which shall be known as the investment period.

B. Both subaccounts shall be within the Deferred Retirement Option Plan established pursuant to this Section. Management of the funds shall be by the system during the contributing period. When the funds are transferred to the self-directed subaccount for the investment period, the system is authorized to hire a third-party provider who shall be an agent of the system for purposes of investing balances in the self-directed subaccounts of the participants.

C. The system or the third party provider shall maintain the subaccounts within this plan reflecting the credits attributed to each participant in the plan during the contributing or investment period. All monies in the subaccounts, while the participant is employed, shall remain a part of the fund, regardless of in which subaccount the monies are maintained, until disbursed to a participant in accordance with the plan provisions upon termination of employment.

D. Interest shall not be credited to a participant's subaccount during the contributing period. All amounts which remain credited to the individual's subaccount after termination of participation in the plan and employment shall be disbursed as provided in R.S. 11:450.

E. Any retiree who received a qualified hurricane distribution prior to January 1, 2007, pursuant to the Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 or the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, may contribute all or part of such qualified hurricane distribution within three years from the date on which such qualified hurricane distribution was received, but only to the extent that such qualified hurricane distribution was eligible for tax-free rollover treatment.

Acts 1990, No. 14, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1991; Redesignated from R.S. 42:578.3 by Acts 1991, No. 74, §3, eff. June 25, 1991; Acts 2003, No. 818, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 2004; Acts 2003, No. 962, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 2004; Acts 2007, No. 50, §1, eff. June 18, 2007; Acts 2008, No. 714, §1, eff. July 1, 2009, or sixty days after a final judgment, whichever is later; Acts 2013, No. 220, §28, eff. June 11, 2013; Acts 2014, No. 791, §5.

NOTE: See Acts 2003, No. 962, §3, relative to applicability of provisions relative to LASERS and Acts 2003, No. 818, superceding conflicting provisions of Act No. 962. (Affects Subsection D as so designated in Act No. 818.)