Skip to main content

June Executive Board meeting and updates

On June 18th the MNCORA Executive Board met. 

First of all we were very appreciative of the waves of support from our MNCORA CO's statewide. The petitions and card mailing campaigns were a success. Sadly we know we must remain vigilant for the next session.

Some lessons we learned were how many of the Unions purporting to represent CO's actually work against their pension benefits.

We heard from many of our LELS members that they were never informed that LELS was supporting adding dispatchers to the correctional plan. Never once did LELS come out and support CO's on this. LELS Executive Director Jim Mortenson even wrote a letter telling MNCORA to "stop contacting our bargaining units " and "If you want advocate for your current members feel free to do so, but please do not advocate for LELS dispatch and corrections members, that is our job!"

We responded to Jim that MNCORA is not a Union, "We represent only Vested, Retirees and beneficiaries in the PERA Correctional Plan. We have members that are LELS, AFSCME, Teamsters, MNPEA  and Janus. Our goal is to protect the PERA Correctional Plan."

This next session we plan to once again push for a CO seat on the PERA Board and vigilantly watch for any future attempts to dump non-CO's into our plan.

Of major importance is the fact that in 2025 all State and Local CO's will be recognized as Public Safety Officers by the Federal Government. What does this mean to you? If you decide to take an early retirement at age 50 you will no longer face the IRS tax penalty. This will not hold true for dispatch, if they were added to our plan it would add yet another wrinkle in implementing the retirement benefits.





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