Public Employees' Retirement System: administration.

(1) Existing law, the Public Employees' Retirement Law (PERL) , vests the Board of Administration of the Public Employees' Retirement System with the responsibility of administering the Public Employees' Retirement System. PERL provides that data filed by a member or beneficiary with the board is confidential, subject to certain exceptions, and is to be used only for carrying PERL into effect. This bill would specify that the confidentiality provisions, described above, apply to the Public Employees Medical and Hospital Care Act, which the board also administers, and would make conforming changes to account for this and to account for school district and university employer categories currently in effect. The bill would authorize the confidentiality of provisions of records connected to the beneficiary of a member or retired member who is or was employed by the entity. The bill also would authorize data to be used in connection with related reporting and notice obligations. (2) PERL prescribes a process by which an agency that is a contracting member of the system may terminate its contract, including requiring the adoption by the relevant governing body of a resolution giving notice of intention to terminate and adopting an ordinance or resolution not less than one year thereafter terminating the contract. PERL prescribes analogous processes for joint contracts with counties and trial courts and for contracts that were made pursuant to an ordinance adopted by a vote of the electorate. This bill would require terminating entities, as described above, to notify past and present employees who are members, former members, or retired members of the system, within 30 days of the adoption of the resolution giving notice of intention to terminate and, with regard to contracts that were approved by the electorate, to make notification of a pending vote to terminate at least 90 days before the date of the vote. The bill would require that the ordinance or resolution terminating the contract be adopted not less than 90 days and not more than one year after the system's receipt of the resolution giving notice of intention to terminate. The bill would prohibit the termination effective date from being earlier than the date of adoption of the ordinance or resolution terminating the contract. The bill would require the board to provide contact information in a specified format to contracting agencies for the purpose of providing notice to past employee members, former members, and retired members and would prescribe a process in this regard. The bill would immunize contracting agencies for failure to provide notice if the contact information is incomplete or incorrect.