In accordance with the South Carolina Code of Laws and the annual Appropriation Act, the State of South Carolina provides certain health care, dental, and life insurance benefits to certain active and retired State employees and certain surviving dependents of retirees. The State provides postemployment health and dental benefits to employees who retire from State service or who terminated with at least 20 years of State service who meet one or more of the eligibility requirements, such as age, length of service, and hire date. Generally those who retire must have at least 10 years of retirement service credit to qualify for these State-funded benefits.
Benefits are effective at date of retirement when the employee is eligible for retirement benefits.
These benefits are provided through annual appropriations by the General Assembly to the University for its active employees and to the State Budget and Control Board for all participating State retirees except the portions funded through the pension surcharge and provided from other applicable fund sources of the University for its active employees who are not funded by State General Fund appropriations. Approximately 20,000 State retirees met these eligibility requirements at June 30, 1999. These amounts were remitted to the South Carolina Retirement Systems for distribution to the Office of Insurance Services for retiree health and dental insurance benefits. Information regarding the cost of insurance benefits applicable to University retirees is not available. By State law, the University has no liability for retirement benefits.