Judges’ Retirement System II: beneficiaries

The law expands judges’ choices over who receives retirement benefits after their death while preserving spouses’ community-property rights. It also removes a 20-year-service requirement for certain survivor benefits when a judge dies in office.

What the law does ​

• Lets judges retiring on or after January 1, 2027, choose beneficiary-based versions of four optional retirement payment plans.
• Allows designated beneficiaries, including nonspouses, to receive survivor payments, remaining contributions, or flexible monthly amounts under the selected option.
• Restores a judge’s higher unmodified allowance when a nonspouse beneficiary waives a benefit under specified 100% or 50% survivor options, without added employer cost.
• Requires beneficiary designations to respect a spouse’s community-property share unless a valid alternative property-division order applies.
• Eliminates the 20-year-service requirement for the surviving spouse of an eligible judge who dies in office to receive the specified survivor allowance.
• Limits a surviving spouse’s separate statutory survivor allowance when the judge chose the new beneficiary-based options to spouses continuously married to the judge from retirement through death.

Who it affects ​

• Judges retiring on or after January 1, 2027.
• Spouses, former spouses, designated beneficiaries, and secondary beneficiaries of participating judges.
• The Judges’ Retirement System II, administered by the Board of Administration of the Public Employees’ Retirement System.