SECTION 35.1. Payment Error

(a) If any error in the records, including errors caused by the administrative process, results in any member, retiree, beneficiary, or alternate payee, as that term is defined under Chapter 804 of the Government Code, including an alternate payee under §804.005 of the Government Code, receiving more or less than the recipient would have been entitled to receive had the records been correct, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) shall correct such error and so far as practicable shall adjust any future payment in such a manner that the actuarial equivalent of the benefit to which the recipient was correctly entitled will be paid. The adjustment may be made to one or more future payments or to payments for as long as the life of the recipient, at the discretion of TRS.

(b) If no future payments are due, TRS may recover an overpayment in any manner that would be permitted for the collection of any other debt.

(c) TRS may correct an overpayment of benefits to a person entitled to receive payments from TRS by the method described in subsection (a) of this section only for an overpayment made during the three years preceding the date TRS discovers or discovered the overpayment.

(d) TRS may not recover from a person entitled to receive payments from TRS any overpayment made more than three years before the discovery of the overpayment.

(e) The limitations in subsections (c) and (d) of this section do not apply to an overpayment that a reasonable person should know the person is not entitled to receive.

(f) This section and §802.1024 and §802.1025 of the Government Code do not apply to the collection of any payment made after the death of an annuitant if such payment was not due because of the death of the annuitant but was paid because TRS did not discover or receive notice of the annuitant's death.

Source Note: The provisions of this §35.1 adopted to be effective January 1, 1976; amended to be effective March 12, 2003, 28 TexReg 2110; amended to be effective April 28, 2004, 29 TexReg 3969; amended to be effective March 8, 2007, 32 TexReg 1091; amended to be effective April 1, 2011, 36 TexReg 2000