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 ...

 I attended the PERA meeting remotely via phone today. The PERA Correctional Plan is doing quite well. I'll share a few documents from today's PERA Agenda .

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...

On April 29, 2024 MNCORA President Wade Laszlo testified at the LCPR (Pension Commission ) meeting at the Minnesota State Capitol. MNCORA testimony starts at 1:11:54

The Bill to increase the multiplier from 1.9 to 2.2% for the high five is in the Omnibus Bill. We've received many questions regarding this. If signed into law this is how it will work. From the 2024 Pension and Retirement Bill (DE 24-0301) Section 14 increases the employee contribution rate for the PERA Correctional Plan by 1% of pay, from 5.83% to 6.83%, and the employer contribution rate by 1.5% of pay, from 8.75% to 10.25%. These increases are intended to fully fund the increase in the multiplier in section 15.  Section 15 increases the multiplier used to calculate the annuity amount for members of the PERA Local Government Correctional Plan from 1.9% to 2.2% for service earned after June 30, 2025. The current multiplier of 1.9% will continue to apply to years of service earned prior to the effective date. With these changes, the benefit formula will be:  Annual benefit = ((years of service earned prior to July 1, 2024, x 1.9%)  + (years of service earned after June 3...

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...

The Pension Commission has included the 1.9 to 2.2% Multiplier in the Omnibus Bill. Here's the agenda from their email. Their website is not updated yet. This is long overdue the multiplier has remained the same since 1999! Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) HF 4297 (Berg); SF 4604 (Nelson): PERA Police and Fire Plan; Clarifying firefighter eligibility HF 4899 (O’Driscoll); SF 5073 (Westlin): Defined Contribution Plan federal compliance HF 4429 (Nelson, M.); SF 5862 (Seeberger): PERA General and Correctional workers’ compensation offset elimination HF 4081 (Stephenson); SF 4092 (Gustafson): PERA Correctional; Benefit multiplier increase from 1.9% to 2.2% for prospective service; employer and employee contribution increase While MNCORA is happy with this, our Bill HF4342 which would add a Corrections Officer seat to the PERA board has yet to have a hearing. A Bill that has both a House File and Senate file, yet the Pension Commission heard several Bills last night that ...