December 3rd Pension Work Group Update

Friday Dec 3rd was potentially the final Pension Benefits Work Group meeting. The LCPR and Chair wants this to be the last meeting.

The Chair Darlene Pankonie surveyed the group, no actual vote, asking the Members if 911 Dispatchers should have an enhanced pension. There was not a consensus.

Even without consensus the Chair asked if 911 Telecommunicators should be added to the Correctional Plans. Again, no consensus. Mainly only the dispatchers supported. The City and County groups opposed as well as the Corrections Officers, Heidi Paumen (appointed by PERA), Dan Gorman (MN CO appointed by MSRS) and Advisor, Retiree Wade Laszlo.

What happens next?

Chad Burkitt, the Analyst for the LCPR, will write the report using minutes and documents from the Work Group's meetings in concert with Darlene Pankonie, who very clearly wants the enhanced pension for dispatchers and judging from the past meetings she wants them in the Correctional Plan.

The report will go to the Legislature's Pension Retirement Commission. The report will have to reflect there was not consensus, but we don't know what it will recommend. Keep in mind this Working Group was born out of Senator Bigham's Bill (SF 2198) to just add 911 Telecommunicators to the PERA Correctional Plan.

The Pension Retirement Commission has the power to let the issue die or move it on to the full legislature.

This issue is not dead!

Session summary, wins and lossses

Governor Walz signed into law the Pension Omnibus Bill yesterday, May 15. It was a busy year for MNCORA and PERA Correctional Plan Legislation. MNCORA with your help was able to stave off yet another attempt to add dispatchers to our pension. Your petitions, calls and thousands of cards mailed to legislators was a success. Sadly we are not out of the woods. Rep. Wolgamott and Rep. Her both told MNCORA that the bill to add dispatch to our pension wouldn't be added to this year's Pension Omnibus Bill, but did not say the issue was dead for next session. MNCORA had a Bill to add a Correctional Officer to the PERA Board authored by Representatives Niska , Scott and Novotny on the House side, and a companion Bill in the Senate by Senators Bahr , Abeler and eventually Frentz . Sadly Pension Commission Chair Kaohly Her did not even allow our Bill a hearing. We will be back with this next year! Another bright note was the passage of a Bill raising the high 5 multipl...

Correctional Officers Federally Recognized as Public Safety Employees

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August 8 PERA meeting

I attended the August 8th PERA meeting in person today. They discussed the funding levels of the plans. Police and Fire is funded at 87% and at current rates won't be fully funded until 2080! The PERA Correctional Plan is funded at 96.7% and will be fully funded by 2026! This includes the increase of the high five multiplier of 2.2% that begins July of 2025. Last year we pushed for a CO seat on the PERA Board. We had the Bill but it didn't get a hearing by the Pension Commission or pass. We tried to get the PERA Board to support that but they didn't want to last year, they said they'd take it up at 'next years planning meeting.' That meeting is October 30th of this year and PERA Executive Director Doug Anderson reminded them of that. The new session will be coming up after elections. We will again push for a long overdue seat on the PERA Board and will be watching for other attempts to raid our healthy plan. We look forward to a new session and new work on your...

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