Sec. 4. (a) There is established a police officers' and firefighters' pension and disability fund to be known as the 1977 fund. The 1977 fund consists of fund member and employer contributions, plus the earnings on them, to be used to make benefit payments to fund members and their survivors in the amounts and under the conditions specified in this chapter.
(b) The system board shall administer the 1977 fund, which may be commingled for investment purposes with other funds administered by the Indiana public retirement system. All actuarial data shall be computed on the total membership of the fund, and the cost of participation is the same for all employers in the fund. The fund member and employer contributions shall be recorded separately for each employer.