Article XVI, Section 66 of the Texas Constitution

Added September 13, 2003:

(a) This section applies only to a public retirement system that is not a statewide system and that provides service and disability retirement benefits and death benefits to public officers and employees.

(b) This section does not apply to a public retirement system that provides service and disability retirement benefits and death benefits to firefighters and police officers employed by the City of San Antonio.

(c) This section does not apply to benefits that are: (1) health benefits; (2) life insurance benefits; or (3) disability benefits that a retirement system determines are no longer payable under the terms of the retirement system as those terms existed on the date the retirement system began paying the disability benefits.

(d) On or after the effective date of this section, a change in service or disability retirement benefits or death benefits of a retirement system may not reduce or otherwise impair benefits accrued by a person if the person: (1) could have terminated employment or has terminated employment before the effective date of the change; and (2) would have been eligible for those benefits, without accumulating additional service under the retirement system, on any date on or after the effective date of the change had the change not occurred.

(e) Benefits granted to a retiree or other annuitant before the effective date of this section and in effect on that date may not be reduced or otherwise impaired.

(f) The political subdivision or subdivisions and the retirement system that finance benefits under the retirement system are jointly responsible for ensuring that benefits under this section are not reduced or otherwise impaired.

(g) This section does not create a liability or an obligation to a retirement system for a member of the retirement system other than the payment by active members of a required contribution or a future required contribution to the retirement system.

(h) A retirement system described by Subsection (a) and the political subdivision or subdivisions that finance benefits under the retirement system are exempt from the application of this section if: (1) the political subdivision or subdivisions hold an election on the date in May 2004 that political subdivisions may use for the election of their officers; (2) the majority of the voters of a political subdivision voting at the election favor exempting the political subdivision and the retirement system from the application of this section; and (3) the exemption is the only issue relating to the funding and benefits of the retirement system that is presented to the voters at the election.

Editor Comments

The original Article XVI, Section 66 was repealed November 2, 1999. The former section, added in 1958 and never amended, concerned pensions for certain Texas Rangers and their widows.

The current Article XVI, Section 66 is self-executing. Note that it is one of the two sections in Article XVI that has an official title (Protected Benefits Under Certain Public Retirement Systems).

The Texas Attorney General, in Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. GA-615 (2008), opined that this section was adopted to overrule "the Texas Supreme Court's 1937 decision in City of Dallas v. Trammell."

—Attorney Steve Smith

Recent Decisions

• Degan v. Board of Trustees of Dallas Police & Fire Pension System, 594 S.W.3d 309, 310 (Tex. 2020) ("In this case, we consider two questions of Texas law certified from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Such questions are authorized by our Constitution and provided for in . . . . The questions concern whether changes made by the Texas Legislature in 2017 to Deferred Retirement Option Plans violate a state constitutional provision that prohibits the reduction or impairment of certain accrued retirement benefits. See Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 66. We consider the certified questions below and conclude that the 2017 legislative reforms here do not violate the Constitution.")

Historic Decisions

None.

Library Resources

• Vernon's Annotated Constitution of the State of Texas (this multi-volume and up-to-date resource is available at all law libraries and many municipal libraries)

• The Texas State Constitution: A Reference Guide (this one-volume resource is available at most law libraries and some municipal libraries)

• The Constitution of the State of Texas: An Annotated and Comparative Analysis (this two-volume resource is available at most law libraries and some municipal libraries)

Online Resources

• Constitution of the State of Texas (1876) (this resource is published and maintained by the University of Texas School of Law)

• Amendments to the Texas Constitution Since 1876 (this resource is published and regularly updated by the Legislative Council)

• Reports Analyzing Proposed Amendments (this resource is published and regularly updated by the Legislative Reference Library)