For purposes of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply:

(a) “Year’s breakpoint” means, with respect to the calendar year in which occurs a member’s last severance from service date, ten thousand seven hundred dollars increased by six per cent each year after 1982, rounded to the nearest multiple of one hundred dollars.

(b) “Final average earnings” means the average covered earnings of a member for his three years of credited service affording the highest such average, disregarding any general temporary reduction or any reduction or nonpayment for illness or other absence which does not exceed ninety days.

(c) “Covered earnings” means the annual salary, as defined in subsection (h) of § 5-154, received by a member in a year, limited by one hundred thirty per cent of the average of the two previous years’ covered earnings. The limit does not apply to earnings for calendar years before 1984, nor for the first three full or partial calendar years of employment. The Retirement Commission may adopt regulations in accordance with chapter 54 determining the procedures to be followed when the member was not employed on a full-time basis for the entire two previous years used to develop such limit.

(d) “Hazardous duty member” means a member who is a state policeman in the active service of the Division of State Police within the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, who is engaged in guard or instructional duties at the Connecticut Correctional Institution, Somers, the Connecticut Correctional Institution, Enfield-Medium, the Carl Robinson Correctional Institution, Enfield, the John R. Manson Youth Institution, Cheshire, the York Correctional Institution, the Connecticut Correctional Center, Cheshire or the community correctional centers, who is an employee of the Whiting Forensic Hospital or its predecessor institutions with direct and substantial patient contact, who is a detective, chief inspector or inspector in the Division of Criminal Justice or chief detective, who is employed as a correctional counselor, correctional counselor supervisor, parole officer or parole supervisor or in a comparable job classification by the Board of Pardons and Paroles, or who has been designated as a hazardous duty member pursuant to the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.

(e) “Tier I plan” means the plan set out in sections 5-157 to 5-192d, inclusive.

(f) “Tier II plan” means the plan set out in sections 5-192e to 5-192x, inclusive.

(g) “State employment” means employment with state-aided institutions, any position in state government, including any position funded wholly or partially by the federal government, and any other employment which, prior to January 1, 1984, would have resulted in coverage under the tier I plan. All references to “state” shall include such positions and employment.

(h) “Severance from service date” means an employee’s date of retirement, death, resignation or termination for cause from the state, or except as otherwise provided in § 5-192i, the first anniversary of the first day of a period in which he remains absent from service, without pay, with the state, for any reason other than retirement, death, resignation or termination for cause, whichever is earlier.