We are sad to report that our Bill to add a CO to the PERA Board is not going to be added to the Pension Omnibus Bill. We are told  it's due to PERA's opposition. We are thankful to those who authored the Bill-Representative Peggy Scott,  Representative Harry Niska, Senator Cal Bahr and Senator Jim Abeler.  The Bill is still good  next session and we have a couple of paths forward. PERA's main opposition is that adding another seat would make it an even numbered board. Disregarding the fact the largest pension board, the Teacher's TRA is even numbered. That can be remedied one of two ways. We can amend our bill to say one of the 3 existing General PERA Board seats will become a Correctional Plan member seat or because we are now Federally recognized as Public Safety Officers we make a bill to have the Police and Fire seat become Police, Fire and Corrections. There are after all more CO's than Firefighters and we are all now Public Safety Officers. Big decision...

I'm monitoring todays PERA Board meeting remotely by phone. This is an EDITORIAL post. During the meeting while discussing Stakeholder Initiatives PERA discussed SF1122/HF139  a Bill  " Increasing postretirement adjustments; decreasing the waiting period for a postretirement adjustment for the police and fire plan." The Bill was Laid Over by the Pension Commission, according to PERA because of lack of money . Fair enough. MNCORA's Bill,  HF708-SF1556  to add a correctional seat to the PERA Board was heard by the Pension Commission then "laid over" with no reason given. THIS BILL WILL NOT COST A PENNY! Last year the Pension Board didn't even give it a hearing. (Sources told us it was because there were no initial Democrat authors). MNCORA realizes the State of Minnesota is in a dire financial condition. Last session the Democratic Trifecta ran through an $18 Billion surplus, increased the size of government exponentially (partly based on one time Federal ...