Terms Used In Arizona Laws > Title 38 > Chapter 5 > Article 6 - Corrections Officer Retirement Plan

• Accidental disability: means a physical or mental condition that the local board finds totally and permanently prevents an employee from performing a reasonable range of duties within the employee's department and was incurred in the performance of the employee's duties. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Accumulated member contributions: means for each member the sum of the amount of all the member's contributions deducted from the member's salary and paid to the fund, plus member contributions transferred to the fund by another retirement plan covering public employees of this state, plus previously withdrawn accumulated member contributions that are repaid to the fund in accordance with this article, minus any benefits paid to or on behalf of a member. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Action: includes any matter or proceeding in a court, civil or criminal. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Actuarial equivalent: means equality in present value of the aggregate amounts expected to be received under two different forms of payment, based on mortality and interest assumptions adopted by the board. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Alternate payee: means the spouse or former spouse of a participant as designated in a domestic relations order. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Amortization: Paying off a loan by regular installments.
• Annuitant: means a person who is receiving a benefit pursuant to section 38-911. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Average monthly salary: means :

  (a) For an employee who becomes a member of the plan:

  (i) Before January 1, 2012, one-thirty-sixth of the aggregate amount of salary that is paid a member by a participating employer during a period of thirty-six consecutive months of service in which the member received the highest salary within the last one hundred twenty months of service. See Arizona Laws 38-881

• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• base salary: means the amount of compensation each member is regularly paid for personal services rendered to an employer before the addition of any extra monies, including overtime pay, shift differential pay, holiday pay, fringe benefit pay and similar extra payments. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Beneficiary: means an individual who is being paid or who has entitlement to the future payment of a pension on account of a reason other than the individual's membership in the retirement plan. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Board: means the board of trustees of the public safety personnel retirement system. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Claimant: means a member, beneficiary or estate that files an application for benefits with the retirement plan. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Credited service: means credited service transferred to the retirement plan from another retirement system or plan for public employees of this state, plus those compensated periods of service as a member of the retirement plan for which member contributions are on deposit in the fund. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Cure period: means the ninety-day period in which a participant or alternate payee may submit an amended domestic relations order and request a determination, calculated from the time the plan issues a determination finding that a previously submitted domestic relations order did not qualify as a plan approved domestic relations order. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Designated position: means :

  (a) For a county:

  (i) A county detention officer. See Arizona Laws 38-881

• Determination: means a written document that indicates to a participant and alternate payee whether a domestic relations order qualifies as a plan approved domestic relations order. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Determination period: means the ninety-day period in which the plan must review a domestic relations order that is submitted by a participant or alternate payee to determine whether the domestic relations order qualifies as a plan approved domestic relations order, calculated from the time the plan mails a notice of receipt to the participant and alternate payee. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Direct rollover: means a payment by the plan to an eligible retirement plan that is specified by the distributee. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Distributee: means a member, a member's surviving spouse or a member's spouse or former spouse who is the alternate payee under a plan approved domestic relations order. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Domestic relations order: means an order of a court of this state that is made pursuant to the domestic relations laws of this state and that creates or recognizes the existence of an alternate payee's right to, or assigns to an alternate payee the right to, receive a portion of the benefits payable to a participant. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Eligible child: means an unmarried child of a deceased active or retired member who meets one of the following qualifications:

  (a) Is under eighteen years of age. See Arizona Laws 38-881

• Eligible retirement plan: means any of the following that accepts a distributee's eligible rollover distribution:

  (a) An individual retirement account described in section 408(a) of the internal revenue code. See Arizona Laws 38-881

• Eligible rollover distribution: means a payment to a distributee, but does not include any of the following:

  (a) Any distribution that is one of a series of substantially equal periodic payments made not less frequently than annually for the life or life expectancy of the member or the joint lives or joint life expectancies of the member and the member's beneficiary or for a specified period of ten years or more. See Arizona Laws 38-881

• Embezzlement: In most states, embezzlement is defined as theft/larceny of assets (money or property) by a person in a position of trust or responsibility over those assets. Embezzlement typically occurs in the employment and corporate settings. ^{Source: OCC}
• Employee: means a person employed by a participating employer in a designated position. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Employer: means an agency or department of this state or a political subdivision of this state that has one or more employees in a designated position. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• fiscal year: means the period beginning on July 1 of any year and ending on June 30 of the next succeeding year. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Fund: means the corrections officer retirement plan fund. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Garnishment: Generally, garnishment is a court proceeding in which a creditor asks a court to order a third party who owes money to the debtor or otherwise holds assets belonging to the debtor to turn over to the creditor any of the debtor
• Grantor: includes every person from or by whom an estate or interest in real property passes, in or by a deed. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• including: means not limited to and is not a term of exclusion. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Juvenile detention officer: means a juvenile detention officer responsible for the direct custodial supervision of juveniles who are detained in a county juvenile detention center. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Local board: means the retirement board of the employer that consists of persons appointed or elected to administer the plan as it applies to the employer's members in the plan. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Minor: means a person under eighteen years of age. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Month: means a calendar month unless otherwise expressed. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Normal retirement date: means :

  (a) For an employee who becomes a member of the plan before January 1, 2012, the first day of the calendar month immediately following the employee's completion of twenty years of service or, in the case of a dispatcher, twenty-five years of service, the employee's sixty-second birthday and completion of ten years of service or the month in which the sum of the employee's age and years of credited service equals eighty. See Arizona Laws 38-881

• Notice of receipt: means a written document that is issued by the plan to a participant and alternate payee and that states that the plan has received a domestic relations order and a request for a determination that the domestic relations order is a plan approved domestic relations order. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Ordinary disability: means a physical condition that the local board determines will totally and permanently prevent an employee from performing a reasonable range of duties within the employee's department or a mental condition that the local board determines will totally and permanently prevent an employee from engaging in any substantial gainful activity. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Participant: means a member who is subject to a domestic relations order. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Participating employer: means an employer that the board has determined to have one or more employees in a designated position or a county, city, town or department of this state that has entered into a joinder agreement pursuant to section 38-902. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Pension: means a series of monthly payments by the retirement plan but does not include an annuity that is payable pursuant to section 38-911. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Person: includes a corporation, company, partnership, firm, association or society, as well as a natural person. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Personal representative: means the personal representative of a deceased alternate payee. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Physician: means a physician who is licensed pursuant to Title 32, Chapter 13 or 17. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• plan: means the corrections officer retirement plan established by this article. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Plan approved domestic relations order: means a domestic relations order that the plan approves as meeting all the requirements for a plan approved domestic relations order as otherwise prescribed in this article. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Probation officers: Screen applicants for pretrial release and monitor convicted offenders released under court supervision.
• Process: means a citation, writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Property: includes both real and personal property. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• retired: means termination of employment after a member has fulfilled all requirements for a pension or, for an employee who becomes a member of the plan on or after January 1, 2012, attains the age and service requirements for a normal retirement date. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Retired member: means an individual who terminates employment and who is receiving a pension pursuant to either section 38-885 or 38-886. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Salary: means the base salary, shift differential pay, military differential wage pay and holiday pay paid a member for personal services rendered in a designated position to a participating employer on a regular monthly, semimonthly or biweekly payroll basis. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Segregated funds: means the amount of benefits that would currently be payable to an alternate payee pursuant to a domestic relations order under review by the plan, or a domestic relations order submitted to the plan that failed to qualify as a plan approved domestic relations order, if the domestic relations order were determined to be a plan approved domestic relations order. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Service: means employment rendered to a participating employer as an employee in a designated position. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Total and permanent disability: means a physical or mental condition that is not an accidental disability, that the local board finds totally and permanently prevents a member from engaging in any gainful employment and that is the direct and proximate result of the member's performance of the member's duty as an employee of a participating employer. See Arizona Laws 38-881
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Writ: A formal written command, issued from the court, requiring the performance of a specific act.
• Writ: means an order or precept in writing issued in the name of the state or by a court or judicial officer. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Writing: includes printing. See Arizona Laws 1-215