A bill in a House committee today would increase the possible pay for retired law enforcement officers who return to work as public safety at state, local or college or university police agencies.
It’s one of two university law enforcement bills from Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Birmingham. The other would allow for mutual aid agreements with college and university law enforcement and local agencies.
As originally filed, House Bill 276 would have increased the maximum salary to $52,000 for law enforcement officers in the Employees’ Retirement System who work in higher education and draw state retirement. Currently, the salary cap for retired university officers is about $38,000 a year or the officer has to suspend his or her retirement income.
The bill was substituted in the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee last month to remove that earnings cap for retired officers to “work, without suspension of their retirement allowance, as a law enforcement officer for any state, county, municipal law enforcement agency, or any state college or university.”
That cap is to deter people from retiring from state jobs, drawing retirement and returning to state employment as a contract employee who doesn’t contribute to the retirement system.
The bill will be back in the committee this morning for a vote. The Retirement Systems of Alabama is opposed to it.
“RSA has concerns about the substituted bill as it carves out a specific group to allow a permanent exception to the return-to-work laws,” Neah Scott, RSA’s legislative counsel, told Alabama Daily News. “This permanent exception could increase RSA’s liabilities and could run afoul of IRS requirements.”
Lawmakers and Gov. Kay Ivey last year increased the possible retirement benefits for officers working in K-12 schools to $58,000. That’s made working for schools much more attractive than working for colleges and universities, Treadaway told ADN.
”Let’s say me and you were working in higher ed security, we’re capped at ($38,000) and now just down the street from the house, we’d go work at a school for 52 (thousand),” Treadaway said. “You’re going to take that, so what we did, we created a shortage in higher ed.”
House Bill351, co-sponsored by Rep. Cynthia Almond, R-Tuscaloosa, would allow college and university police to enter into the same mutual aid agreements with other law enforcement agencies, similar to what local and state agencies can already do. Treadaway said the bill was needed to better define the authority of campus police. Under current law, campus police are not allowed to engage in mutual aid agreements.
“Their (University of Alabama) football team is playing at the stadium in Birmingham, and that’s not considered on campus,” said Treadaway. “So there was some confusion with various boards about whether they had jurisdiction authority in that area as they follow a team.”
“What it allows is a permissive agreement with the city.”
The bill would be set in place for mutual aid agreements between departments for emergency scenarios.
“They’re certified police, but there was something (in the law) that they could not have mutual aid agreements, which we have in case of disasters,” said Treadaway, on university police. “There was some gray area and some question and that particular law clears that up.”
“It allows for UAB or University Alabama Tuscaloosa to enter a mutual aid agreement with the city police,” said Treadaway.