Senate Bill 1134 Summary

• Allows retirants to change their retirement allowance beneficiary if their first spouse (who was designated as beneficiary) dies after the retirement effective date, and the retirant later marries another spouse, with a request filing window of 180 days to 1 year after the new marriage.

• Permits retirants who were not married at retirement but later marry to designate their spouse as a retirement allowance beneficiary under reduced payment options, subject to the same 180-day to 1-year filing window.

• Allows retirants whose marriage was not recognized by Michigan at retirement to designate their now-recognized spouse as a beneficiary if that spouse remains the same person and the marriage is now recognized by the state.

• Changes multiple instances of mandatory language ("shall") to permissive language ("must") throughout sections 85, 91, and 108 and revises the actuarial interest rate determination for retirement allowance calculations from a fixed 8% to a rate determined by the department director and retirement board in consultation with the actuary.

• Makes technical corrections to capitalization, terminology (e.g., "person" to "individual"), and date references throughout the Public School Employees Retirement Act.