TUTTLE, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs are former San Antonio policemen and firemen who challenge the operation of the city’s Firemen’s and Policemen’s Pension Fund. The remaining defendants are the Pension Fund Board of Trustees and its members as individual party defendants. Pursuant to Article 6243f of Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes the city of San Antonio maintains a pension fund to which all policemen and firemen are obliged to contribute a portion of their salaries. The pension fund provides death and disability benefits for officers injured in the line of duty, and provides retirement benefits. Should an officer leave public employment before he is eligible for any of these benefits, however, the Act specifically provides:
“[N]o member of ' either of said Departments or of said Fund shall ever be entitled to any refund from said Fund on account of the money deducted from that amount of their pay . . . which money is in itself declared to be public money, and the property of said Fund for the benefit of the members qualifying for benefits, and their beneficiaries.”
Article 6243f, § 19. The plaintiffs filed this class action seeking a refund of the [996]*996amounts they contributed while they were serving as policemen or firemen in San Antonio.1
The district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment, holding that the no-refund provisions of Article 6243f were constitutional. The plaintiffs appeal.
I. JURISDICTION
The plaintiffs primarily assert jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and its jurisdictional counterpart 28 U.S.C. § 1343.2 Section 1983 provides:
“Every person who, under color of any statute ... of any State, . subjects . . . any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights . secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceedings for redress.”
The Supreme Court has held that the term “person” as it is used in § 1983 does not include municipal corporations, Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961); City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973). Relying on Kenosha the district court dismissed the City of San Antonio as a party, but found that jurisdiction would lie against the Pension Fund and its individual board members.
Although the issue is not raised by the briefs of either party, the correctness of the trial court’s determination that the Pension Fund Board of Trustees and its individual members are subject to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, was raised by the parties at oral argument. In any event, since the question touches on the court’s jurisdiction, we consider that it should be disposed of.
The Pension Fund Board of Trustees and the named individuals comprising the Board contend, in a word, that they are immune from suit under § 1983 because they are not “persons”, since they are performing governmental functions and that the reasoning by which the Supreme Court in Monroe, supra, arrived at the decision that the term “every person” in § 1983 did not comprehend a city, and, later, in Moor v. County of Alameda, did not comprehend a county, requires that actual designated persons acting as trustees of a governmental agency also be held not to be comprehended within the word “person” in this statute.
Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has thus far limited the scope of § 1983. The most comprehensive discussion of the extension of the Monroe and later Kenosha principle in this Circuit is in Adkins v. Duval County School Board, 511 F.2d 690 (5th Cir., 1975). In that case a plaintiff sued Duval County School Board in its corporate capacity. The opinion stated, as to the issue relevant to the question now before us:
“Two things should be noted to the argument concerning the far-reaching effect of the district court’s decision. First, the issue is not whether the school board can be sued. Personal jurisdiction of the defendants is not questioned. We are confronted only with subject matter jurisdiction, i. e., whether a cause of action against a school board recognizable in federal courts was created by § 1983. Second, our responsibility is not to decide whether Congress could or should establish such a cause of action, or whether a similar cause of action may [997]*997exist under some other jurisprudence, but whether Congress in fact did direct a § 1983 cause of action against school boards. Unlike constitutional decisions, our determination here can be corrected by Congress itself if it desires another result.
We can find no controlling distinction between a Florida school board, as a governmental entity, and a Florida municipality or a Florida county, that would suggest that Congress would include one within the purview of the statute, and not the other two. All three find authority for their existence in the Florida Constitution. See F.S. A.Const. Art. VIII, §§ 1 and 2 and Art. IX, § 4. Counties, municipalities and school districts are granted the power in the Constitution to participate in establishing taxes and tax rates for their respective purposes, F.S.A.Const. Art. VII, § 9, which power is exercised by their respective governing bodies. See F.S.A. § 200.011. The legislature has provided each with significant governmental power with which to operate for its respective purposes. See F.S.A. § 125.001 et seq. (counties); F.S.A. § 165.01 et seq. (municipalities); F.S.A. § 230.01 et seq. (school districts).
In an exercise of legislative discretion the Florida legislature has chosen to designate the school board as a ‘body corporate’ for all purposes, including institution and defense of suits involving official action. See F.S.A. § 230.21. It has similarly chosen to have the governing authority of a municipality or county generally operate in the name of the county or municipality, including suing and being sued as a ‘body corporate’. See F.S.A. §§ 125.15, 165.08. Each of these governmental entities, a school district, a county and a municipality, can operate as an entity only through its designated governing authority, the school board, the county commissioners, and the city council. The fact that the Florida legislature has designated the governmental entity to be sued in its own name in two instances and in the name of the governing authority in the third does not change the character of the suit. The suit, however styled, is against the governmental subdivision itself in each case.
We have recently held that the various arms of state government, such as the Department of Highways, are not ‘persons’ within the meaning of § 1983, Cheramie v. Tucker, 493 F.2d 586, 587-588 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 868, 95 S.Ct. 126, 42 L.Ed.2d 107 (1974). That decision would seem to follow logically from Monroe, Moor, and Kenosha. All of those precedents dealt specifically with political subdivisions of a state, i. e., municipalities and counties. If the subdivisions of a state were not ‘persons’ under § 1983, the state itself was obviously not such a ‘person’ and therefore, the entities through which the state functions should be excluded. An analysis of the approach taken by the Supreme Court in Kenosha and Monroe, and that Court’s expression of what it views the legislative intent to have been when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, seems to require the conclusion that § 1983 was similarly not directed at county school boards.”
In the Adkins case, the opinion also said: “We have recently decided that a Texas school district which ‘under Texas law, is in the nature of a municipality’ (emphasis added) is not a ‘person’ as that term is used in § 1983. Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, 496 F.2d 92, 93 n.2 (5th Cir. 1974)”.
It is, thus, apparent that our inquiry here is whether the San Antonio Police and Firemen’s Pension Fund Board of Trustees has such duties, powers, and purposes as would make it of “the nature of a municipality”. If so, then the Board of Trustees cannot be sued under § 1983. If not, then it can.3
[998]*998 While the determination whether the Police and Firemen’s Pension Fund Board of Trustees is a “person” within the meaning of § 1983, is a question of federal law, See Monroe v. Pape, supra, 365 U.S. at 187-192, 81 S.Ct. 473, the Court must look to the state law to determine the powers and duties and purpose of the entity created. The purposes of this fund are set out above. The City of San Antonio, pursuant to Art. 6243f of Vernon’s Civil Statutes maintains a pension fund to which all policemen and firemen are obliged to contribute a portion of their salaries. The named defendants are the trustees of this fund. The Board possesses none of the broad governmental powers which we held to be controlling in Adkins v. Duval County School Board. It is not responsible for any broad governmental function, thereby serving the public interest. As statutory trustees, the Board members are responsible only to the beneficiaries of the trust. In sum, while § 21 of Art. 6243f provides that the City of San Antonio is obliged to pay any deficiencies between the money procured under the Act and benefits paid, nonetheless, the Board of Trustees functions as a group of statutory trustees rather than as a governmental body; it partakes of no uniquely governmental responsibilities: it only administers the trust fund. Although not binding on this Court, we think the decision of the Texas Court of Civil Appeals in Bolen v. Board of Firemen, Policemen & Fire Alarm Operators’ Trustees of San Antonio, Texas, 308 S.W.2d 904, 905, most clearly states the nature of this Board:
“The Board is not the State, nor is it a county, a city, a town or any other political corporation or subdivision of the State. The Board is simply a group of statutory trustees charged with the management of the Pension Funds of the Firemen, Policemen and Fire Alarm Operators of the City of San Antonio.”
The Court further said in the Bolen case:
“The Board just simply is not a political corporation nor a political subdivision of the State. It does not have any of the attributes of a political subdivision. A political subdivision contemplates: geographical area and boundaries, public elections, public officials, taxing power and a general public purpose or benefit. The board has none of these attributes . . .”
What seems to be the view of the Texas Court is that pension funds serve an essentially private function. They differ from independent pension funds as set up by other employers or labor unions only in that the beneficiaries are public employees. Such funds could just as well have been set up with the city and employees contributing to a bank or insurance company as trustee, and in that case the identical function would be performed without utilizing public officials as trustees. With this analysis we agree, and conclude that this Board of Trustees is not “like a municipality” and is thus not immune from suit as a “person” under § 1983.
Further, we believe the individual members of the Board are subject to suit under § 1983. There can be no serious question but that they are “persons”; the word has never been suggested to have some arcane meaning whereby some human beings would be “persons” but others would not. Nothing in either Monroe v. Pape or Bruno v. City of Kenosha suggests that some special meaning should be applied to the term as it is used in § 1983. Indeed, in both Monroe v. Pape and Bruno v. City of Kenosha the Supreme Court carefully noted that the jurisdictional immunity enjoyed by the two municipalities in the cases was not shared by the individual party defendants.
In Monroe v. Pape the Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit which had dismissed an action for damages against police officers of the City of Chicago. In affirming the dismissal against the city [999]*999upon the now well-known grounds that the word “person” in § 1983 was to be construed as not including a municipality, the Court said: “Accordingly we hold that the motion to dismiss the complaint against the City of Chicago was properly granted. But since the complaint should not have been dismissed against the officials the judgment must be and is reversed.” In Bruno v. City of Kenosha, a case in which the suit had been filed only against the two cities of Kenosha and Racine, Wisconsin, seeking an injunction, the Supreme Court noted that the Attorney General of the state had intervened as a defendant and remanded the case with respect both to that posture of the case and for further consideration in light of the allegations of the complaint that the suit was based on federal question jurisidiction as well as on § 1983. It was thus clear that the Court was recognizing the right of the plaintiff to maintain his action against the attorney general under § 1983 and against the two cities involved if he established the jurisdictional amount required for federal question jurisdiction under § 1331.
This Court has specifically held that § 1983 actions can proceed against individual party defendants, despite the fact that the ultimate judgment would “surely be felt by the City.” United Farmworkers of Florida Housing Project, Inc. v. City of Del Ray Beach, Florida, 493 F.2d 799, 802 (5th Cir. 1974); Sterzing v. Fort Bend Independent School District, 496 F.2d 92, 93, n.2 (5th Cir. 1972). In Adkins v. Duval County School Board, a case seeking reinstatement, back pay and other relief, we stated:
“In all of the cases before us none of the individual members of the three school boards and no officials of the boards were defendants when the cases were dismissed. Had there been individual party defendants, whom this Court has previously held to be ‘persons’ for the purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the trial court could not, of course, have dismissed the suits for failure to allege a proper jurisdictional basis.”
511 F.2d at 696. We agree with the court in Harper v. Kloster, 486 F.2d 1134, 1138 (4th Cir. 1973) when it stated:
“In Monroe, nevertheless, the Court held that § 1983 applied to municipal officers and employees when damages were sought. . . . We see no reason to give Kenosha any wider application.”
In our view, the fact that both Sterzing and United Farmworkers of Florida Housing Project, supra, involved claims principally for injunctive relief is an irrelevant distinction. In City of Kenosha the Supreme Court specifically rejected the idea that the nature of the relief sought can affect jurisdiction.
“We find nothing in the legislative history discussed in Monroe, or in the language actually used by Congress, to suggest that the generic word ‘person’ in § 1983 was intended to have a bifurcated application on municipal corporations depending on the nature of the relief sought against them.”
412 U.S. at 513, 93 S.Ct. at 2226. In our view, this forecloses the argument that our earlier cases can be limited solely to cases where injunctive relief is sought against municipal city officers.
The argument that the Supreme Court’s construction of the word “person” in § 1983 has created a bulwark against any action which might result in making inroads on a city’s financial structure is completely answered, it seems to us, by the fact the Court seemed not the least concerned about whether substantial damages against the police officers of the City of Chicago would be paid only out of the pockets of the individual officers or out of appropriations made by the city government, or by their insurers. Moreover, nothing could more clearly demonstrate the fact that the Supreme Court intended merely to construe the language of § 1983 as not comprehending a municipality rather than granting any sort of blanket immunity to a city or a county by its Monroe [1000]*1000decision, than the Court’s treatment of the parties in Moor v. County of Alameda, supra. In that case the Court held that the County of Alameda was like a municipality and thus not comprehended within § 1983, and that the plaintiff could not sue it under that section; however, in the same opinion, the Court held that the plaintiff, being a non-resident of the State of California, adequately alleged diversity jurisdiction and that the County of Alameda was a citizen of the State of California for diversity purposes, and could be sued.
Some confusion seems to have arisen in courts which have not been frequently concerned with interpretation of the Civil Rights Acts to the extent that they seem to have assumed that since the Supreme Court — in Monroe — held that a city could not be sued under § 1983, it could not be sued at all in a federal district court. Moor v. County of Alameda clearly puts that matter to rest. Moreover, a clear answer to those who contend that Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) gives instruction to the effect that the Monroe holding should be expanded to cover municipalities and other governmental entities on some theory of sovereign immunity or protection under the Eleventh Amendment, is some of the language in Edelman, itself. In footnote 12 on page 667, 94 S.Ct. on page 1358, the Court said:
“ . . . As may be seen from Griffin’s [Griffin v. School Bd., 377 U.S. 218, 84 S.Ct. 1226, 12 L.Ed.2d 256] citation of Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U.S. 529, 10 S.Ct. 363, 33 L.Ed. 766 (1890), a county does not occupy the same position as a State for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment. See also Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973). The fact that the county policies executed by the county officials in Griffin were subject to the commands of the Fourteenth Amendment, but the county was not able to invoke the protection of the Eleventh Amendment, is no more than a recognition of the long-established rule that while county action is generally state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, a county defendant is not necessarily a state defendant for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment.”
In Lincoln County v. Luning, supra, the case referred to in the footnote quoted above, the Supreme Court said:
“With regard to the first objection, it may be observed that the records of this court for the last 30 years are full of suits against counties; and it would seem as though by general consent the jurisdiction of the federal courts in such, suits has become established. But irrespective of this general acquiescence, the jurisdiction of the circuit courts is beyond question. The Eleventh Amendment limits the jurisdiction only as to suits against a state. It was said by Chief Justice Marshall, in Osborn v. [The] Bank [of the United States], 9 Wheat. 738, 857 [6 L.Ed. 204] that ‘the eleventh amendment, which restrains the jurisdiction granted by the constitution over suits against states, is of necessity limited to those suits in which the state is a party on the record.’ While that statement was held by this Court in the case of In Re Ayers, 123 U.S. 443, 8 S.Ct. 164, [31 L.Ed. 216], to be too narrow, yet by that decision the jurisdiction was limited only in respect to those cases in which the state is a real, if not a nominal, defendant; and while the county is territorially a part of the state, yet politically it is also a corporation created by and with such powers as are given to it by the state. In this respect it is a part of the state only in that remote sense in which any city, town, or other municipal corporation may be said to be a part of the state. Metropolitan Railroad Company v. District of Columbia, 132 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 19, 33 L.Ed. 231.”
The other case cited by Mr. Justice Rehnquist, writing for the Supreme Court in the above footnote, Moor v. County of Alameda, has already been commented on above. It would seem [1001]*1001clear, therefore, that none of the considerations of sovereign immunity or Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit should be imported into a court’s consideration as to whether this one section of the civil rights acts is to be construed as permitting or denying a plaintiff to sue a particular minor governmental agency or official.
II. CONSTITUTIONAL CLAIMS
The plaintiffs raise a myriad of constitutional challenges to the no-refund provisions of Art. 6243f V.T.C.S. In our view, none of them has merit, and we accordingly affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment.
The plaintiffs claim first that the refusal of the Pension Fund Board to refund their contributions constitutes a taking of their property without compensation, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. While earlier cases have termed the benefits due from such a governmental pension fund a “bounty” or a “privilege,” and accordingly refused to order payment on the grounds the sovereign could withhold its gratuities at will,4 we do not rely on this distinction between privileges and vested rights. Rather, in our view, there was no “taking” which would require compensation. While the plaintiffs contributed to the Pension Fund, they in turn received protection in the event of death or disability far in excess of their contributions. This protection continued so long as they remained employed as firemen or policemen. They thus enjoyed the benefits of their contributions during their term of employment, and no other compensation is due them.
Similarly their argument that they are entitled to notice and hearing before they can be deprived of property fails.
The plaintiffs also argue that they were denied equal protection inasmuch as other civil servants in San Antonio were not obliged to participate in the same pension program, and further that police and firemen in small Texas cities are not similarly affected by Art. 6243f. While it is true that the plaintiffs were treated differently from certain other public employees, it does not seem to us that this difference in treatment was in any way irrational or a violation of equal protection. Certainly as a class, policemen and firemen in San Antonio cannot be considered as a “suspect class,” thus requiring strict scrutiny of the legislative purposes for the difference in treatment.5 Nor could the interest the plaintiffs assert in their contributions to the Pension Fund be though of as some fundamental personal right.6 Absent a suspect classification, or an infringement on some fundamental right, a classification is deemed permissible if it is found to have a “reasonable relationship” to a legitimate governmental interest.
“State legislatures are presumed to have acted within their constitutional power despite the fact that, in practice, their laws result in some inequality. A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts may be conceived to justify it.”
McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 425-26, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1105, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961).
San Antonio policemen and firemen participate in a different pen[1002]*1002sion program than other city employees; they are eligible for substantially greater benefits in the event of death or disability. Other city employees contribute less of their salary, are eligible for refunds, participate in Social Security, and enjoy far fewer benefits. Given the nature of the work of policemen and firemen, this difference in treatment seems eminently reasonable. The Texas Supreme Court has previously construed the pension provisions of 6243f, finding the special treatment of firemen and policemen to be based on the hazardous quality of their work. Firemen’s and Policemen’s Civil Service Commission v. Wells, 157 Tex. 644, 306 S.W.2d 895, 897 (1957). We find the state supreme court’s construction of the legislative purpose for the statute convincing.
Similarly the difference in treatment between the policemen and firemen in larger cities from those in smaller cities7 can be justified on the basis of the legislature’s perception of the differing hazards of the work.
Policemen and firemen in larger cities contribute a more substantial portion of their earnings, and are eligible for far greater benefits. The defendants reasonably argue that the no-refund provisions enable the state to maintain the level of benefits, thereby attracting and retaining qualified officers. While the plaintiffs appear to have conceded the fiscal rationality of the pension statutory scheme, they argue Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970) held that a state’s protection of its fiscal affairs cannot be used to justify such a statute. The district court properly found Dandridge inapplicable, as it involved fundamental rights with the resultant requirement that a state demonstrate a compelling interest in its statutory scheme.8
Finally the plaintiffs argue the no-refund provisions of Art. 6243f affected their constitutionally guaranteed right to travel and also constitute a bill of attainder. Neither argument has any substance. Certainly the plaintiffs were not denied refunds because they wished to travel: they lost their contributions because they resigned their public employment. A bill of attainder is a legislative act inflicting a penalty without a judicial trial. Cummings v. State of Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 18 L.Ed. 356 (1866). No penalty was exacted here, for as we have found the plaintiffs were not deprived of property to which they have a claim.
In sum, the plaintiffs entered into public employment which had as one of its conditions mandatory contributions to the San Antonio Police and Firemen’s Pension Fund; Art. 6243f became by its terms an element of their contracts of employment. The no-refund provisions of Art. 6243f are reasonable and, in our view, constitutional.
Affirmed.