The board of trustees may use excess investment interest to grant cost-of-living benefit increases to qualifying retirees or surviving beneficiaries, subject to caps and timing limits.
§1638. Cost-of-living increase of benefits A. Six months after the end of the system's fiscal year, the board of trustees is authorized to use interest earnings on investments of the system in excess of normal requirements, as determined by the actuary, to provide a cost-of-living increase in benefits to any person who is a retiree or a surviving beneficiary of a member or retiree of this system who has been retired for a period not less than one year, in an amount not to exceed the lesser of three percent of the original benefit, or in the case of a beneficiary, that fraction of the original benefit specified in the optional allowance selected or sixty dollars per month. The cumulative total of all such increases shall not exceed the lesser of three percent of the original benefit, or in the case of a beneficiary, that fraction of the original benefit specified in the optional allowance selected, or sixty dollars per month for each full calendar year of retirement. B. The benefits provided in this Section shall not be retroactive to any period. Further adjustments in benefits may be made each January 1st next after at least a full year has elapsed after benefits began, subject to the limitations contained herein. C. No increase in benefits pursuant to Subsection A of this Section shall apply if the resulting benefit would exceed the limitations of R.S. 11:1632(C). Added by Acts 1975, No. 745, §2. Amended by Acts 1979, No. 585, §1; Acts 1984, No. 483, §1; Acts 1991, No. 60, §1; Redesignated from R.S. 16:1049 by Acts 1991, No. 74, §3, eff. June 25, 1991; Acts 1993, No. 234, §1, eff. June 1, 1993; Acts 2012, No. 523, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 2013.