Annuities etc. Exempt.    (a) All pensions, annuities, refunds or disability benefits granted under this Article, and every portion thereof, are exempt from any State or municipal tax, and exempt from attachment or garnishment process and shall not be seized, taken, subjected to, detained or levied upon by virtue of any judgment, or any process or proceeding whatsoever issued out of or by any court for the payment and satisfaction in whole or in part of any debt, damage, claim, demand or judgment against a pensioner, annuitant, refund applicant or other beneficiary hereunder.
     (b) No pensioner, annuitant, applicant for refund, disability beneficiary or other beneficiary has a right to transfer or assign his or her pension, annuity, refund or disability benefit or any part thereof, either by mortgage or otherwise, except that an annuitant may direct that a monthly payment be made to the group health or hospital insurance plan administered by his or her former employer or by the pension fund established under this Article.
     (c) Whenever an annuity, pension, refund or disability benefit is payable to a minor or a person adjudged to be under legal disability, the board, in its discretion, when in the apparent interest of such minor or person under legal disability, may waive guardianship proceedings and pay such money to the person providing for or caring for such minor and to the spouse or blood relative providing or caring for such person under legal disability. In the event the person under legal disability has no spouse or blood relatives willing to provide or care for him or her, and for whom no estate guardian has been appointed, and who is confined to a Medicare approved, State certified nursing home or a publicly owned and operated nursing home, hospital or mental institution, the board may pay such benefit due such person to the head of the nursing home, hospital or mental institution for deposit to such person’s trust fund account maintained by the certified nursing home, hospital or institution, if such trust fund accounts are authorized or recognized by law. The acceptance of the payment and the endorsement of the payment by the person caring for or providing for a minor or a person under legal disability shall be an absolute discharge of the board’s and the fund’s liability in respect to the amount so paid.
     (d) Whenever an employee, pensioner, annuitant, applicant for refund or disability beneficiary disappears or the person’s whereabouts are unknown and it cannot be ascertained whether or not the person is alive, there shall be paid to the person’s spouse the amount which would be payable to the spouse in the event that the person died on the date of disappearance. In the event the missing person returns, or is proved to be alive, the amount previously paid to the spouse shall be charged against any moneys payable to the person under this Article as though such payment to the spouse had been an allowance out of the moneys payable to such person.