On February 15th the 911 Telecommunicators Pension Benefits Working Group made their presentation to the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement .  MNCORA submitted a letter  into written testimony and MNCORA President Wade Laszlo testified before the Commission on behalf of MNCORA defending the PERA Correctional Pension. Below is the entire presentation MNCORA testimony begins around the 17:53 time mark with another vital point made at the 25:20 mark. This was a hearing only. It is unclear at this point what recommendations if any will come out of this presentation. MNCORA will be monitoring.

 This was the agenda for today's meeting: Item 1 attendance turned out to be very important. The workgroup committee has only 2 Corrections Officers that can vote. The CO  from Sherburne County chosen by PERA and the MSRS CO  from the State were not there! (EDIT: After this posting it was learned the vote was scheduled when neither were available.) This meant there was no corrections vote when it came to approving or arguing changes and the all important vote to approve and adopt the report! There is an Advisor a retired CO, Wade Laszlo. He was able to speak but unable to make motions to make  changes to the draft or vote on approval at this meeting. The Chair stated that for something to have consensus there had to be no objections. So there was no consensus to improve the Dispatcher's pension and the line stating "Pension coverage for 911 Telecommunicators should not be changed to the PERA or MSRS Correctional Plans"  was scratched before the meeting ...

 MNCORA has been monitoring the 911 Telecommunicators Pension Benefits Working Group established by the Minnesota State Senate. Among considerations is adding 911 Dispatchers to the PERA Correctional Retirement Plan. They seem to be leaning very heavily towards this. Talk at the last meeting has working group members comparing the stress of 911 dispatching to the very real physical dangers Correctional Officers face on the job! Sources tell us at the last meeting PERA Executive Director Doug Anderson said it could cost as much as $79 million to add dispatchers to the Correctional Plan! This was only a ballpark because NO ACTUARIAL STUDY has been done or even approved by the legislature! If dispatchers are added the up to 2.5% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) would probably end. With the current high inflation even the 2.5% COLA is a shrinking benefit! It's quite possible this work group could recommend adding people to a high risk plan, that don't meet the criteria, destroying...