470 - When guards and other employees may be retired.
§ 470. When guards and other employees may be retired. A guard or other employee in a state prison or reformatory, or an employee in the department of correction, who shall have served a term of employment of twenty-five years, which employment, in the case of a guard or employee in a state prison or reformatory, was either wholly in such prison or reformatory or partly therein and partly in another prison or reformatory or in a state hospital or penitentiary, or which employment, in the case of an employee of the department of correction, was either wholly in such department or the former prison department, or partly therein and partly as a guard or other employee in a prison, reformatory, hospital or penitentiary, or in one or more of them, and which, in the case of any such guard or employee in a state prison or reformatory or employee in the department of correction, was either in one consecutive term or in two or more terms which shall together amount to a total period of employment of twenty-five years, may, if unable to perform his regular duties in a manner satisfactory to the commissioner of correction be retired as hereinafter provided at one-half his annual salary for the year immediately preceding such retirement. An employee who retires on or after April first, nineteen hundred seventy, shall receive an additional pension of two per centum of his average annual salary earned during the three years immediately preceding retirement for each year of service in excess of twenty-five; provided, however, that the total pension provided by the state pursuant to this section shall not exceed seventy-five per centum of the average annual salary earned during the three years immediately preceding retirement. Any such guard or employee who is physically or mentally incapacited for the performance of duty after a total period of employment of twenty years shall be retired and paid annually a pension of forty per cent of his annual salary for the year immediately preceding such retirement plus an additional two per cent for each year of service after twenty years; provided, however, that such pension shall not exceed one-half his annual salary for the year immediately preceding such retirement. Such pension shall be paid annually as long as such disability continues, upon certification of a board consisting of the commissioner of correction, the attorney general and the comptroller. Any such guard or employee who shall have reached the age of seventy years, who shall have served a term of employment of not less than fifteen years, may, if unable to perform his regular duties in a manner satisfactory to the commissioner of correction be retired as hereinafter provided, and be paid such proportion of one-half of his annual salary for the year immediately preceding such retirement, as the number of years served bears to the full term of twenty-five years. Prison or reformatory service shall include the service in time of war of honorably discharged officers, soldiers, sailors, marines, and army nurses who were actual residents of the state at the time of their entry into the military service of the United States, and the service of members of the national guard in the military service of the United States pursuant to call of the president for Mexican border service. Such payment shall be payable out of moneys appropriated therefor, and shall not be revoked, diminished or subject to the claims of creditors. Such guard or employee may be retired when such action shall be in the interest of the state in the following manner: A guard or employee of the department of correction shall be retired upon approval of the commissioner of correction at the expiration of twenty-five years of service, upon application for such retirement to the commissioner of correction. Within the meaning of this section, an employee of the department of correction means any person employed under the commissioner of correction.