Skip to main content

PERA Meeting December 8th

 I attended the PERA meeting on December 8th. As you can imagine with the markets being the way they are the PERA Correctional Plan fund performed at a -6.4% for 2022. Compare that to a +30.3% in 2021.

In short our fund lost money last year. 

Currently the Actuarial Rate of Return (expected income from investments) is at 7.5% (set by the legislature) . Because of what the markets are doing PERA recommended that the legislature investment return assumption be lowered to between 5.64 and 6.55. This does not reflect what money actually comes in but gives PERA an idea of how healthy the funds are.

If the actuarial return assumptions do end up in the 6% range it's possible for our funding to drop below 85%. If that happens for more than 2 years our COLA drops down to 1-1.5% depending on the Social Security Cost of living! Currently we're at 2.5%! PERA Executive Director Doug Anderson pointed out if our COLA drops there is NO mechanism to bring it back up to 2.5% without legislative action.

Because of that I believe that in addition to pushing for our PERA Pension and Social Security to be exempt from the Minnesota State Tax I think MNCORA should push to add a mechanism to raise our COLA back up if it drops when the economy improves.

This was PERA's last meeting until February 16th 2023 when the new PERA Board is set. As you know I was endorsed by MNCORA for the Retired, Disabled and Survivor Representative seat. I would appreciate your vote when the Ballots come out in January. 


Wade Laszlo

President MNCORA


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...
Read more

Notes from the August MNCORA Executive Board meeting

 We hope you're all enjoying your summer. The MNCORA Executive Board met August 3rd. Here's what's happening. There's a proposal from an Anoka County Detention Deputy, not a MNCORA member, who has met with PERA's Doug Anderson about raising the retirement payout from 1.9% to 2.2%. We met with him prior. MNCORA supports a higher payout but would want to see an actuarial of what affect it will have on our plan. Neither the Actuarial or a Bill to raise it would happen this year as it's a short session and last year was the budget year. It would not affect current retirees, but those still working. It would most likely require a larger contribution from both the employer and employee, that's why we want an actuarial. The Minnesota Duty Disability Association,  MNDDA  is raising money for a Lawsuit suing the State over HF 1234 and all the potential damage to those out on Duty Disability. They asked for our support. The Executive Board voted and supports this. We ...
Read more

Taking time off under the new State Statutes may impact your pension!

We are all aware of the new Minnesota Laws granting very generous paid time off. However looking at the PERA Agenda for December 11th there's a warning.  In their PERA Legislative Agenda it states: Minnesota Paid Leave Minn. Stat. 268.09 Subd. 6 (d)(3) addresses the impact of the paid leave law on pensions. Under this section, the employee cannot be penalized for vesting and eligibility purposes. PERA does not require an employee to be employed on a specific date to be credited with a year of service for vesting, contributions, or participation and PERA allocates service credit on a monthly basis. PERA grants service credit if the member earns PERA eligible salary in a month. We do not prorate service credit.  Since paid family and medical leave payments are provided by a third-party administrator, in this case the State, PERA is unable to collect contributions on these payments. Applying PERA's current statute, state paid family and medical leave program payments are not el...
Read more