Skip to main content

MNCORA letter of support for retirement legislation

 The following was sent to every Minnesota State Senator and Representative. MNCORA encourages you to contact them expressing your support!

Dear Minnesota State Legislators,  

The Minnesota Correctional Officer Retirement Association (MNCORA) supports the following Bills before you that we believe will make life better for retired Minnesota Correctional Officers: 

SF 2838 & HF 2788-If enacted would exempt Social Security from Minnesota State income Tax 

SF 3538 & HF 3902 – if passed would provide relief from Minnesota State Income Tax for the following pensions; Police and Fire, Local Government Correctional Plan, State Patrol and State Correctional Officers. 

SF 4294 & HF 4306- If passed would increase the COLA’s and reduce employee contributions for most Minnesota State Retirement System plans, Public Employees
Retirement Association plans, Teachers Retirement Association, Minnesota state
higher education individual retirement account plan, and St. Paul Teachers
Retirement Fund Association; increasing postretirement adjustment rates;
temporarily reducing employee contribution rates; reducing the investment rate
of return actuarial assumption; increasing and extending direct state aid to the
public employees police and fire retirement plan, the St. Paul Teachers Retirement
Fund Association, and the judges retirement plan; appropriating money; amending
Minnesota Statutes.
  

The Minnesota Correctional Officer Retirement Association (MNCORA)believes that Correctional Officer retirees worked hard serving their State and Local Governments and deserve relief from high taxes after years of service and now on fixed incomes, especially in light of the State’s budget surplus. 

MNCORA supports these Bills and urges your support. 

Sincerely, 

The MNCORA Board  


Popular posts from this blog

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...

Confusion at today's PERA meeting

 I attended the PERA Board meeting remotely today (3/13/25). As all of you know there's lots of pieces at play in the PERA pension plans. There have been in the recent past attempts by 911 Dispatchers and Probation to be merged into the PERA Correctional Plan which MNCORA has vehemently opposed. The positive note from todays meeting is that the current discussion is centered around improved pensions (earlier retirement) for probation and dispatch without talk of adding them to the Correctional Plan.  The sad part is the apparent confusion among PERA Board members as to the difference between Essential Employees and Public Safety Employees. Some were using the terms interchangeably which could lead to future problems.  While Police, Fire, Corrections, Probation and 911 Dispatch are all essential employees  https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/179A.03 . Only Police, Fire and Correctional Officers are Public Safety! The Secure Act 2.0 spells out changes to the defi...

No seat on the PERA Board this year

  We are sad to report that our Bill to add a CO to the PERA Board is not going to be added to the Pension Omnibus Bill. We are told  it's due to PERA's opposition. We are thankful to those who authored the Bill-Representative Peggy Scott,  Representative Harry Niska, Senator Cal Bahr and Senator Jim Abeler.  The Bill is still good  next session and we have a couple of paths forward. PERA's main opposition is that adding another seat would make it an even numbered board. Disregarding the fact the largest pension board, the Teacher's TRA is even numbered. That can be remedied one of two ways. We can amend our bill to say one of the 3 existing General PERA Board seats will become a Correctional Plan member seat or because we are now Federally recognized as Public Safety Officers we make a bill to have the Police and Fire seat become Police, Fire and Corrections. There are after all more CO's than Firefighters and we are all now Public Safety Officers. Big decision...