Opinion ID: 6108934
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Are the Employees Members of the Pension System?

Text: The City is required to make contributions only for members of the Pension System. See TEX. REV. CIV. STAT. art. 6243h §§ 1(11), 8, 8A. So, the City is correct that the Pension System's case turns on whether the corporations' personnel are employees and thus members of the Pension System under the statute. Id. § 1(11) (defining employee); id. § 1(13) (defining members as active employees except for those statutorily ineligible). If they are not members, then the City has no duty to make payments on their behalf and is not acting ultra vires by failing to do so. The City argues that the corporations' personnel are not members of the Pension System and that contrary to the Pension System's claim, the Court in Klumb did not decide otherwise. According to the City, Klumb only addressed the Pension System's statutory authority. The City's argument is without merit. As we explained in Klumb : The breadth of the pension board's authority under Article 6243h is inescapable. As it pertains to the matter at hand, the statute expressly authorizes the pension board to construe the statute, add language it deems necessary for the administration of the pension fund, and determine all eligibility questions and all other legal and factual matters pertaining to the fund's administration. Courts may not review the board's actions in doing so absent a manifest conflict with express statutory terms. That is not the case here because (1) the definition of employee is composed of essential terms that are undefined and (2) the supplemental language the board adopted neither inherently nor patently conflicts with the terms of the statute. We therefore conclude that, as a matter of law, the pension board did not act without legal authority in interpreting the term employee to include a full-time employee of a Texas local government corporation ... controlled by the City, upon a determination by the External Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees that such [local government corporation's] employees are Employees for purposes of the [Pension System] Plan. The board's additional explication of the definition as including employees of any entity controlled, directly or indirectly, by [the City] is also well within the board's discretionary authority. Absent a conspicuous and irreconcilable conflict, any further consideration of the matter would impermissibly encroach on the unreviewable, discretionary authority afforded to the board under Article 6243h. Klumb , 458 S.W.3d at 10-11 (emphasis added). There is no substantive difference between saying that the board did not act ultra vires when interpreting employee to include the corporations' personnel, and directly saying that those individuals are  employees pursuant to the board's resolutions. The board had authority to define the term and did so. To reiterate what we said in Klumb , under article 6243h, and per the final and binding board resolutions defining employee, the corporations' personnel are employees and therefore members of the Pension System unless otherwise ineligible under statutory requirements. And the City does not contend that the personnel are otherwise ineligible under the statute. See TEX. REV. CIV. STAT. art. 6243h, § 4. The City asserts that even if the personnel at issue are members of the Pension System, the Pension System's ultra vires claims against it are barred by immunity because the Pension System (1) seeks to enforce contractual duties under the MCA, and noncompliance with a contract does not give rise to an ultra vires claim; (2) can maintain ultra vires claims only where there is no adequate remedy by law; (3) does not seek to impose duties imposed by law but complains only about discretionary matters; (4) seeks retrospective relief; and (5) made claims that are now moot because of recent statutory amendments prohibiting agreed deviations from statutory requirements regarding the City's contribution rate and amounts. We address the above arguments next.