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.

Correctional Officers Federally Recognized as Public Safety Employees

As of January 1, 2025, Correctional Officers are Federally Recognized as Public Safety Employees the same as Police and Fire. This has implications for disability, taxes and retirement. As we face new challenges to our pension in 2025 this will further the distinction between PERA General Plan members like 911 Dispatch and Probation and CO's in the PERA Correctional Plan. It's part of the Secure Act 2.0. 26 USC § 72(t)()(10) definition of Public Safety Employee - qualified public safety employee (10) Distributions to qualified public safety employees and private sector firefighters (A) In general In the case of a distribution to a qualified public safety employee from a governmental plan (within the meaning of section 414(d) ) or a distribution from a plan described in clause (iii), (iv), or (vi) of section 402(c)(8)(B) to an employee who provides firefighting services, paragraph (2)(A)(v) shall be applied by substituting “age 50 or 25 years of service u...

New Bill for Corrections seat on the PERA Board

MNCORA thanks Representatives Peggy Scott and House Leader Harry Niska for Authoring HF708 in the House and senators Cal Bahr and Jim Abeler for authoring the bill in the Senate SF1556 . Next step is for the LCPR to hear this Bill. Here's a link to the Pension Committee (LCPR). It's very important to contact them and ask them to give it a hearing for it to move on. https://www.lcpr.mn.gov/members.htm

PERA Board votes against CO seat-arguments. What's next and options

On December 12, 2024 the PERA Executive Board voted unanimously not to support legislation to add a Correctional Officer seat to the PERA Board. This is disappointing but will not dissuade MNCORA from again seeking a Bill with the Legislature. I would like to counter some of the PERA Boards arguments. At the planning meeting and in PERA's letter they argued that adding a seat would make the number on the Board even. So, we revised our proposal to add an additional Retiree seat. After all retirees are almost 30% of PERA membership and Retirees have only one member elected seat. In their letter they state, “ The current makeup of the board is 6 member positions to 3 employer positions, adding additional board members representing member groups would weigh the board’s makeup further towards the membership .” Not exactly true. It’s an 11 person board. Source PERA 2023 PFAR The 11 person Board is made up of 5 seats that are appointed by the Governor and one more is th...

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