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Salary Benefit Appropriation Allocations (APS 019)

FPP A.042

Benefit Appropriations

Introduction

State agencies and institutions of higher education pay portions of certain employee benefits. The General Appropriations Act (GAA) appropriates funds for these payments.

State-Matched Social Security

The GAA appropriates funds to the Comptroller’s office for state-matched Social Security contributions. Agencies and institutions of higher education must submit budget documents to the Comptroller’s office for the estimated amount of Social Security necessary for the appropriation year. Agencies then make direct payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Benefit Replacement Pay

Government Code, Section 606.064 was amended in 1995 to eliminate the requirement that the state of Texas pay a portion of the employee’s share of Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes, commonly referred to as state-paid Social Security. Beginning with wages paid Jan. 1, 1996, state-paid Social Security payments ended and, for eligible employees, were replaced with benefit replacement pay (BRP) payments to offset the loss of state-paid Social Security to eligible state employees and state-paid judges.

Appropriations for this purpose have been made to the Comptroller’s office in the GAA. State agencies must submit budget documents to their ACO requesting the transfer of the estimated amount for BRP payments to their eligible employees.

Note: BRP for institutions of higher education is appropriated directly to each institution and will not be allocated from the appropriation made to the Comptroller’s office.

Employees’ Retirement and Group Insurance

The GAA appropriates funds to the Employees Retirement System (ERS) for employees’ retirement and employee group insurance.

Agencies must submit budget documents to their ACO for the estimated amounts of state retirement and group insurance for the appropriation year. Agencies then make payments directly to ERS.

ERS acts as the state’s trustee agency for state employee retirement and insurance benefits.

ORP and TRS

Institutions of higher education have two retirement appropriations:

  • Optional Retirement Program (ORP) (Appropriation 97646) for qualifying employees.
  • Teacher Retirement System (TRS) (Appropriation 99323) for all other employees.

Budget allocated for ORP expenditures includes both general revenue and other educational and general (E&G) income.

Budget allocated for TRS expenditures includes other E&G income only. See Reimbursing Retirement Contributions and Insurance Premiums (APS 005) (FPP A.034).

Note: The general revenue appropriation for institutions’ teacher retirement state match is made to TRS. Institutions should follow their normal process in reporting general revenue salary expenditure data to TRS for state retirement contribution purposes.