(a) A local miscellaneous member and a local safety member, whose effective date of retirement is within four months of separation from employment with the employer that granted the sick leave credit, shall be credited at the member’s retirement with 0.004 year of service credit for each unused day of sick leave certified to the board by the member’s employer. The certification shall report only those days of unused sick leave that were accrued by the member during the normal course of the member’s employment and shall not include any additional days of sick leave reported for the purpose of increasing the member’s retirement benefit. Reports of unused days of sick leave shall be subject to audit and retirement benefits may be adjusted where improper reporting is found.

(b) (1) This section shall not apply to any contracting agency nor to the employees of a contracting agency until the agency elects to be subject to this section by contract or by amendment to its contract made in the manner prescribed for approval of contracts, except that an election among the employees is not required, or, in the case of contracts made after September 26, 1974, by express provision in the contract making the contracting agency subject to this section.

(2) This section shall only apply to members who retire after the effective date of the contract amendments.

(c) Any contracting agency that is a school district, county office of education, or community college district that elects to contract for unused sick leave conversion under this section or participates in a risk pool pursuant to Section 20840 shall be subject to the provisions of Section 20963.5.

(Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 330, Sec. 14. (SB 782) Effective January 1, 2020.)