AUGUSTA — Kennebec County will appeal to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to try to overturn a decision granting back-dated retirement benefits to two employees and one retiree.

Kennebec County Administrator Robert Devlin said commissioners voted 3-0 at a recent meeting to appeal the April 8 ruling by Superior Court Justice Andrew Horton.

Horton upheld a decision by the Board of Trustees of the Maine Public Employees Retirement System, which said the county is required to offer membership in the state retirement system to Carol Royer, of Farmingdale, Jim Saucier, of Belgrade, and Diana York, of Pittston.

Royer recently retired; Saucier and York still work for the county.

The decision said the three didn’t receive the opportunity to join the retirement system for a total of 31 years among them. They all joined it by 2010.

“They should have been offered Maine State Retirement and they weren’t,” their attorney, Walter McKee, said previously. “They said had they been, they definitely would have signed up; it’s a tremendous benefit.”

Warren Shay, the attorney representing the county, had estimated in court documents that the decision could cost the county $250,000, and Devlin said it would not be covered by insurance.