Chap. 313.—An ACT to provide a retirement fund for public school teachers.

Approved March 14, 1908.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That when-
ever any person, not including superintendents, has taught in the public
schools of this State an aggregate of twenty years, if said person has
maintained a good record and by reason of physical or mental infirmity
or old age is incapable of rendering efficient service as a teacher, or if
said person has taught for twenty-five years in this State, and desires
to be retired, as herein provided, he or she may make application to the
State board of education to be retired and pensioned as hereinafter
provided. If the State board of education shall find the facts as above
stated it shall place the name of the said person upon a list to be known
as “the retired teachers’ list,” and the said board may, of its own motion,
place any teacher on said list who has served for twenty years if said
board shall deem it best for the good of the school system to take such
action. A careful record shall be kept by the said board of the names
of the teachers retired and pensioned under the provisions of this act,
and every person so placed poh said list shall receive a pension as here-
inafter provided.

2. The fund; whence derived.—In order to provide a fund to pen-
sion said retired teachers all contracts with teachers shall provide that
the chairman and clerk of the school board or other officers whose duty
it is to pay public school teachers, shall deduct monthly from the salary
of each teacher in the State a sum equal to one per cent. of his or her
salary. Each teacher shall be furnished a statement showing the amount
so deducted. The sum so deducted shall be promptly remitted by the
officers deducting the same, through the office of the second auditor of
Virginia to the State board of education, which shall immediately de-
posit the same with the State treasurer. All amounts so received shall
‘be placed by the State treasurer to the credit of a fund to be called
“the retired teachers’ fund,” and an accurate account shall be kept of all
funds so received.

3. Appropriation—The sum of five thousand dollars per annum, or
so much thereof as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this
act, is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the treasury not other-
wise appropriated, to carry into effect the provisions of this act. The
said sum shall be turned over to the State board of education and de-
posited as aforesaid with the State treasurer to be placed to the credit
of the fund created by section two of this act.

4. Legacies, bequests, et cetera.—All legacies, bequests and funds de-
rived from devises for the benefit of teachers under this act shall be
paid over to the State board of education and shall be by it transferred
as aforesaid to the treasurer of Virginia, to be placed to the credit of
the fund provided for in section two of this act.

5. The State board of education shall be permitted to invest the
capital and unappropriated income of said “retired teachers’ fund,”
as provided in the eleventh subdivision of section fourteen hundred and
thirty-three of the Code with all the powers of investment or reinvest-
ment granted by said section, and all securities belonging to said fund
shall be. deposited with the second auditor for safekeeping, who shall
return with his annual report a list thereof with a statement of their
value.

6. What pensions to be paid.—The State board of education shall
quarterly, on the first day of January, April, July, and October in each
year issue its warrant on said fund signed by the president and secre-
tary of said board as follows: A warrant shall be issued to the second
auditor of Virginia for the benefit of each person whose name has been
placed on said list for the quarter immediately preceding the time of
payment for a sum equal to one-eighth of the annual salary earned by
such person at the time he or she was placed on such list. And the
second auditor shall issue his warrants to said persons accordingly. In
no event, however, shall any quarterly pension exceed the sum of one
hundred dollars, except that of principals of schools may receive as a
quarterly pension as much as one hundred and twenty-five dollars. In
the event that the available funds shall, in the judgment of the State
board of education upon a prudent and equitable appropriation of the
same for any quarter, be insufficient to pay all pensions due for the
quarter to the full amount thereof, then the same shall be paid pro rata,
according to the amount of money that is available, as aforesaid.

%. The State board of education shall see that proper arrangements
are made for keeping an accurate account of all moneys received, in-
vested or disbursed under this act, and the superintendent of public
instruction shall include a full statement of all the transactions of said.
fund in his annual or his biennial report. The State board of education
shall require proper and sufficient bonds from the person, or persons,
charged with the management or custody of said funds, except in the
cases of the State treasurer and second auditor, whose official bonds
shall cover the said funds, for the proper application of which they and
the sureties on their official bonds shall be liable.