1542                               Laws of Maryland                        [Ch. 565

provision of this article, the other half shall be accumulated in a
special account under the Pension Accumulation Fund to be used
at the direction of the board of trustees to provide all or part of the
cost of benefit improvements.

205.

The creation and maintenance of reserves in the Pension Accumu-
lation Fund, the maintenance of annuity reserves and pension re-
serves as provided for, and regular interest creditable to the various
funds as provided in Section 198, of this article, and the payment
of all pensions, annuities, retirement allowances, refunds and other
benefits granted under the provisions of this subtitle, and all ex-
penses in connection with the administration and operation of this
retirement system are hereby made obligations of the State of Mary-
land. All income, interest and dividends derived from deposits and
investments authorized by this subtitle shall be used for the pay-
ment of the said obligations of said State. Any amounts derived
[therefore] therefrom which, when combined with the regular
amounts, otherwise contributable by the State of Maryland as pro-
vided under the provisions of this subtitle, exceed the amount re-
quired to provide such obligations, shall be used to reduce regular
appropriations otherwise required, except as otherwise provided in
Section 198(3) (i) of this article.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That new Section 56(3)(j) be
and it is hereby added to Article 88B of the Annotated Code of Mary-
land (1969 Replacement Volume), title "State Police," subtitle "State
Police Retirement System," to follow immediately after Section
56(3)(i) thereof; and that Section 59 of said article, title and sub-
title of the Code be and it is hereby repealed and re-enacted, with
amendments, and all to read as follows:

56.

(3) (j) The board of trustees may in its discretion adopt a gen-
erally accepted method of writing up the book value of the common
stock portion of the assets held by the retirement system, pro-
vided that the annual amount of any such write-up shall not ex-
ceed 3 per centum of the total book value of the common stocks held
as of the determination date of the write-up. One-half of the amount
of any such write-up shall be offset against the employer contribu-
tions otherwise payable hereunder and, notwithstanding any other
provision of this article, the other half shall be accumulated in a
special account under the Pension Accumulation Fund to be used
at the direction of the Board of Trustees to provide all or part of
the cost of benefit improvements.

59.

The creation and maintenance of reserves in the Pension Accu-
mulation Fund, the maintenance of annuity reserves and pension
reserves as provided for, and regular interest creditable to the
various funds as provided in Section 56 of this subtitle, and the
payment of all pensions, annuities, retirement allowances, refunds
and other benefits granted under the provisions of this subtitle and
all expenses in connection with the administration and operation
of this Retirement System, are hereby made obligations of the State.