(a) The retirement system for teachers shall be funded on an actuarial reserve basis. The retirement board shall, on or before December first, annually, certify to the General Assembly the amount necessary, on the basis of an actuarial determination, to establish and maintain the retirement fund on such determined actuarial reserve basis and make such other recommendations with regard to the fund and its administration as the board deems necessary. On the basis of each evaluation, the retirement board shall redetermine the normal rate of contribution and, until it is amortized, the unfunded past service liability. The General Assembly shall review the board's recommendations and certification and shall appropriate to the retirement fund the amount certified by the retirement board as necessary, provided said certification is in compliance with this section. On and after the effective date of this section, no public or special act of the General Assembly shall reduce such appropriation to an amount below such amount certified unless the Governor declares an emergency or the existence of extraordinary circumstances, in which the provisions of section 4-85 are invoked, and at least three-fifths of the members of each chamber of the General Assembly vote to reduce such appropriation during the biennium for which the emergency or existence of extraordinary circumstances is declared. The amount appropriated by the General Assembly shall be deposited by the Treasurer into the retirement fund in quarterly allotments on July fifteenth, October first, January first and April first.
(b) The board shall determine on an actuarial basis (1) a normal rate of contribution which the state shall be required to make into the retirement fund in order to meet the actuarial cost of current service and (2) the unfunded past service liability. In making such determination the board shall assume that the annual rate of interest earned by the funds of the system invested by the State Treasurer pursuant to section 10-183m equals the total assumed rate of return adopted by the board under the provisions of section 10-183nn . For the first eight years, the funding program for the actuarial reserve basis shall consist of the following percentages of the sum of normal cost and the amount required for a forty-year amortization of unfunded liabilities, provided, if in any such year the amount required to be paid by this section is less than the amount which would be required to fund the system on a terminal basis and to pay the annual cost of benefits payable under subsection (j) of section 10-183g or under other prior legislative adjustments to retirement benefits, the state shall pay the greater amount: