1951: Active membership totals 58,000. Net worth totals $212 million. There are 6,600 retirees receiving $6 million in annual benefits.
1953: The System’s Retirement Board provides optional membership to licensed substitute and part-time teachers.
1954: A new law provides beneficiaries with a death benefit in addition to the member’s accumulated contributions. System assets pass the $300 million mark.
1960: NYSTRS moves to 143 Washington Ave., Albany. The System begins to use electronic data processing equipment for the first time, and a state law permits investments in equities.
1960s: Field consultation services are established as staff begin to travel around the state to offer individual retirement consultations and conduct benefit presentations.
1965: The System gets its first computer for record-keeping and begins copying past files onto microfilm.
1968: The Non-Contributory Retirement Plan is enacted which eliminates the requirement for members to contribute to an annuity and improves the defined benefit pension calculation.
1970: The Career Retirement Plan is added, which provides improvements in retirement and death benefits.
1971: Active membership totals 199,000. Net worth totals $3 billion. There are 25,000 retirees receiving $112 million in annual benefits.
1973: New York State establishes Tier 2 with age reductions on pension benefits and restrictions on Final Average Salary (FAS) calculations, but Tier 2 also introduces the post-retirement death benefit that is available to all future tiers. Teachers who became members before July 1, 1973 are now considered Tier 1.
1976: Tier 3 is established with new rules on service retirement benefits, disability eligibility and prior service credit purchases, but also introduces two enhancements that have stayed in effect for future tiers: an accidental death benefit and the removal of a cap on the maximum pension factor that can be earned. New members are required to make 3% contributions throughout their career (until Article 19 is enacted in 2000).