This doesn't look right! No CO's at final vote!

The Minnesota Legislature, by Statute authorized a Working Group to study whether 911 Telecommunicators should have "changes to the pension plan coverage for 911 telecommunicators are appropriate..."

Subd. 2.

Duties; report.

The working group must submit a report to the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement by March 1, 2022. The report must recommend whether changes to the pension plan coverage for 911 telecommunicators are appropriate. If the working group finds that such changes are appropriate, the working group must recommend changes to the pension plan coverage for 911 telecommunicators. The recommended changes may include but are not limited to moving 911 telecommunicators to the correctional plans.

The same statute spelled out who must be in the working group including:

(10) a member of the public employees local government correctional service retirement plan, designated by the board of trustees of the Public Employees Retirement Association; and

(11) a member of the state correctional employees retirement plan, designated by the board of directors of the Minnesota State Retirement System.

When the Working Group meeting took place on January 28th at 9 AM neither the CO from PERA or MSRS was there. It turns out the MSRS CO was not included in the 'Doodle' sent to out to learn availability and the PERA CO was sent one but they scheduled it during a time she had marked as unavailable!

This is curious because the report isn't due until March 1st! Surely a time could have been picked to accommodate the only two CO's on the Working Group.

That last meeting was extremely important as changes could be introduced to the 2nd draft and voted on, and the final draft was voted on for approval minus 2 important members required by statute.

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...

Victory on keeping Dispatch out of Correctional Pension?

It's too early to declare victory as the Legislature is still in session. However there are signs the petitions from jails across the State and Cards to the Pension Commission are having the desired effect. Chair of the Pension Commission, Rep. Her wrote us saying- " Thank you for the letters. I always appreciate feedback. HF4796/SF4958 was not included in the Pension Omnibus bill. " Author of HF4796, Rep. Wolgamott wrote us and said- "Thank you for sharing your input regarding HF 4796. The bill will not receive a committee hearing and will not be moving through the legislative process this session. I hope you will continue to stay in touch and keep me updated with MNCORA’s perspective on issues and legislation affecting your members." There are still ways to sneak it in so we won't rest until the session is over, but we are cautiously optimistic. We thought the issue was settled after the Workgroup two years ago, but here it is again. Our hope is they ge...

PERA Correctional seat on the PERA Board, next step

Bill HF4342 authored by Rep. Niska and Scott now has a companion bill in the Senate, SF4464 authored by Sen. Bahr and co-authored by Sen. Abeler. MNCORA is thankful for the support of these Representatives and Senators. If passed for the first time a PERA Correctional Officer will have a seat on the PERA Board. The next step is for the Pension Commission to give it a hearing. If it is not heard the bill will die. What can you do? The Chair of the Pension Commission is Representative Her. This is her contact information: Phone 651-296-8799 E-mail: rep.kaohly.her@house.mn.gov The Vice chair on the Senate side is Senator Frentz. This is his contact information: Phone 651-296-6153 E-Mail sen.nick.frentz@senate.mn PLEASE contact them and ask them to have the Pension Commission give it a hearing and then contact your Representative and Senator and ask them to support these Bills. Make your voice heard!

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