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

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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