Most people do not welcome a phone call from the Internal Revenue Service, but a recent call means that Mississippi’s retired public employees can serve in the Legislature and draw their pension.

The Public Employees Retirement System Board, based on the IRS phone call, voted unanimously Tuesday to change its long-standing regulation that prevented retired public employees from drawing their pension while serving in the Legislature.

Early last year the PERS Board had voted to change the regulation by January contingent on a ruling by the IRS that the change would not negatively impact the system’s tax exempt status.

But, it appears, based on preliminary discussions that the IRS was not going to OK the change, which would have meant an estimated seven new retirees elected to the Legislature in November under the assumption that they could draw their retirement would have to not serve or sacrifice their pension, which in general is significantly more than their legislative pay.

But on Tuesday, PERS Executive Director Ray Higgins said IRS officials recently had called and said they “intended to rule in favor of the (change to) the regulation.” Based on that phone call, the PERS Board voted to change the regulation.

The PERS vote comes less than a month before the Jan. 7 start of a new four-year legislative term where the new members were going to have to decide whether to sacrifice their pension or not take the seats they were elected to in November.

The IRS decision was based, at least in part, according to Higgins, on a phone call from the office of Attorney General Jim Hood explaining existing state law. In an official opinion released in late 2018, Hood’s office had said the long-standing regulation of the PERS Board saying retirees could not serve in the Legislature and draw their retirement check conflicted with existing state law.

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