(a) Any member of the Arkansas Public Employees' Retirement System who suffers from or who has suffered in the past from a work-related injury for which workers' compensation benefits were paid under the workers' compensation laws, and whose annuity from the system would otherwise be reduced due to the reduced salary and lost credited service, shall be entitled to obtain credited service for the actual time period of reduced salary and lost service credit by paying to the system all employee contributions at the rate and on the compensation that would have been paid had he or she been a member of the system during that time, all employer contributions based on the employer normal cost from the most recently completed regular annual actuarial valuation and the compensation that would have been paid had he or she been a member during that time, and regular interest on the employee and employer contributions computed from the date the service would have been rendered to the date the payment is received by the system.
(b) Provided, however, at the discretion of the employer, any employer under the system may elect to implement a policy to pay the employer's portion of any contributions that an employee would otherwise be responsible to pay under this section to receive the service credit.