Pennsylvania Statutes Title 53 P.S. Municipal and Quasi-Municipal Corporations § 767. Establishment of police pension funds or pension annuities;  regulation and maintenance;  rights of beneficiaries

(a)(1) Each borough, town and township of this Commonwealth maintaining a police force of three or more full-time members and each regional police department shall, and all other boroughs, towns or townships may, establish, by ordinance or resolution, a police pension fund or pension annuity to be maintained by a charge against each member of the police force, by annual appropriations made by the borough, town, township or regional police department, by payments made by the State Treasurer to the municipal treasurer from the moneys received from taxes paid upon premiums by foreign casualty insurance companies for purposes of pension retirement for policemen, and by gifts, grants, devises or bequests granted to the pension fund pursuant to section two of this act.  1

(2) Such fund shall be under the direction of the governing body of the borough, town, township or regional police department, and applied under such regulations as such governing body, by ordinance or resolution, may prescribe for the benefit of such members of the police force as shall receive honorable discharge therefrom by reason of age and service, or disability, and may prescribe for the benefit (i) of surviving spouses, and if no spouse survives or if he or she survives and subsequently dies, then (ii) of child or children under the age of eighteen years or, if attending college, under or attaining the age of twenty-three years, of members of the police force or of members retired on pension.

(3) All such pensions as shall be allowed to those who are retired by reason of disabilities shall be in conformity with a uniform scale.

(4) The surviving spouse of a member of the police force or a former member of the police force who, prior to April 18, 2002, retired on pension and dies subsequent to retirement or who, after April 16, 2002, retires on pension and dies subsequent to retirement, or if no spouse survives or if he or she survives and subsequently dies, then the child or children under the age of eighteen years or, if attending college, under or attaining the age of twenty-three years, of a member of the police force or a member who retires on pension who dies, shall, during her lifetime in the case of a surviving spouse or until reaching the age of eighteen years or, if attending college, under or attaining the age of twenty-three years in the case of a child or children, be entitled to receive a pension calculated at no less than fifty per centum of the pension the member was receiving or would have been receiving had he been retired at the time of his death.

(5) The surviving spouse of a member of the police force who dies before his pension has vested or if no spouse survives or if he or she survives and subsequently dies, the child or children under the age of eighteen years or, if attending college, under or attaining the age of twenty-three years, of the member of the police force shall be entitled to receive repayment of all money which the member invested in the pension fund plus interest or other increases in value of the member's investment in the pension fund unless the member has designated another beneficiary for this purpose.