PERA meeting and Planning meeting update

MNCORA attended the October 10 regular meeting and the Planning Meeting for the upcoming year.

Relating to the PERA Correctional plan at the Board meeting- PERA is recommending legislation to clarify disability for Corrections Officers to reflect the change from the 1.9% - 2.2% high five modifier. In other words disability needs to be paid out at the higher rate going forward. MNCORA supports this.

Planning Meeting

They discussed adding a PERA Correctional Plan member to the PERA Board. This is a result of our legislation last year (which we will push again) to do so.

This was only a planning meeting. No votes were taken, that will happen at the next PERA meeting. The board did not seem in favor of this.

The legitimate point was made that there hasn't been a change to PERA's board since 1995 and the Correctional Plan didn't exist until 1999.

It was downhill from there. Some conversations about opposing the seat were-

*Adding a seat would make it a 12 member board-an even number.

*Correctional Plan members can already run for the General Plan seat.

*Yes there have been attempts to add other groups to our plan, but they have not supported those.

*They are happy with the current board make up.

The next meeting is December 12th and that is when they will vote to support or not. See our last Post for MNCORA's position.

MNCORA is pushing ahead with our legislators to get the bill passed either way this session.

Watch this Blog for updates.

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...

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!

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...

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