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.

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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