1. (a) Under the Act, a participant's accumulated contributions (with interest as allowed thereon under the Act) may become payable to a participant upon terminating subdivision employment and membership in the system prior to retirement, as set forth in the Act, §842.108, or may become payable to the participant's designee or estate under the Act, §844.401, in the event of the participant's death prior to retirement. A domestic relations order regarding a participant who has not yet retired should clearly state that the alternate payee is entitled to a lump sum payment equal to the amount of alternate payee's interest in the plan as defined in §109.5(a)(2) of this title.
2. (b) Under the Act, a service retirement benefit or a disability retirement benefit may become payable to the participant (and, upon the participant's death, to a designee) as set forth in the Act, §§844.101 - 844.106 and §§844.301 - 844.305. A domestic relations order regarding a participant should clearly state that the alternate payee is entitled to receive a life annuity based on the alternate payee's interest in the plan awarded by the order and calculated in accordance with the terms of the plan.
3. (c) If an order is entered after the participant has retired under a service or disability retirement, then the order should clearly state that participant's annuity is divided into two single life annuities. One single life annuity is payable to the alternate payee based on the percent of the actuarial present value of the participant's current annuity awarded to alternate payee under the order, and one single life annuity is payable to the participant based on the remaining actuarial present value of the participant's current annuity, calculated in accordance with §109.12(d) or (e) of this title, as applicable.
4. (d) A Group Term Life benefit may become payable under the Act, §844.503 or §844.504, upon the death of a participant who was or had been employed by certain of the subdivisions participating in the system. That benefit is not the property of a participant, but rather is a benefit that is paid by the system as a result of the death of a participant. If any portion of such benefit becomes payable to an alternate payee under the express wording of a qualified domestic relations order, it will be so paid upon the death of the participant; however, if the domestic relations order does not specifically provide that some portion of that benefit is to be paid to an alternate payee, then no portion of the Group Term Life benefit shall be paid otherwise than as set forth in the Act, §844.505.

Source Note:The provisions of this §109.6 adopted to be effective January 29, 1988, 13 TexReg 305; amended to be effective January 10, 1996, 21 TexReg 135; amended to be effective December 30, 2012, 37 TexReg 10250; amended to be effective April 30, 2015, 40 TexReg 2281.