Last session the following legislators authored HF4342  on the House side, a Bill to add a PERA Correctional Officer to the PERA Board.  Representative Harry Niska was the one who got the ball rolling quickly followed by Rep. Peggy Scott and Rep. Paul Novotny . On the Senate side SF4464 Senator Cal Bahr was the first to Author followed by Senator Jim Abeler  and finally Senator Nick Frentz . The Chair of the Legislative Pension Commission , Rep. Kaohly Her did not allow this Bill to be heard even though it had a sponsor on both the House and Senate side. MNCORA is hoping to get this Bill reintroduced this upcoming session. Each year the Chair of the  Pension Commission rotates. We are hoping the next Chair is more amenable to a Correctional Officer on the PERA Board. This is an election year and MNCORA wants our members to know who has supported our efforts. Supporting this Bill were Representatives Harry Niska, Peggy Scott and Paul Novotny. In the Senate were Se...

  The MNCORA Executive Board met on 9/17/27. Discussed-PERA's planning meeting is October 10th. Being discussed is adding a Corrections Officer seat to the PERA Board. MNCORA will be stating our support. This is the result of MNCORA approaching the PERA Board last session. They didn't support us or oppose. They tabled it until this years planning meeting. Big things are coming this session, Watch this site to keep up.  Last session ended with a bill to to add dispatchers to our pension. While this didn't move forward they stated it wasn't dead. They are supposed to be doing an actuarial about an improved pension for dispatch and probation. Hopefully it doesn't include a raid on our pension. MNCORA will be watching.

Last session LELS Legislator of the Year Rep. Dan Wolgamott put forward Bill HF 4796   to add Dispatchers to the PERA Correctional Plan. MNCORA fought this. The Bill didn't pass last session but resulted in a study that is to explore a better pension for Dispatch and Probation. We hope that doesn't include another swing at our Corrections Plan. As of today it's not listed on the LCPR's Workgroup page so we don't know. We were told the issue is not over. Last session LELS Executive Director Jim Mortenson was very upset MNCORA was collecting petitions opposing HF4796. LELS CO's were blindsided by their Union's support of this threat to the Correctional Plan. MNCORA has members statewide. We're hearing from some CO's LELS doesn't support adding Dispatch to our plan and from other groups they're telling dispatch they do.  LELS has a history of treating Correctional members different than others. For instance they collect dues for the MPPOA, but ...

 A CO working in the Hubbard County jail was shanked by an inmate. He was able to fight off the inmate until help arrived. The officer was treated at the hospital for wounds to his face and head. Th inmate who has a history of violence was charged with First, Second, Third and Fourth degree assault. Bail is $900,000. We wish the CO a speedy and full recovery. Full story KROC This is the press release from Hubbard County Sheriff Cory Aukes:

I attended the August 8th PERA meeting in person today. They discussed the funding levels of the plans. Police and Fire is funded at 87% and at current rates won't be fully funded until 2080! The PERA Correctional Plan is funded at 96.7% and will be fully funded by 2026! This includes the increase of the high five multiplier of 2.2% that begins July of 2025. Last year we pushed for a CO seat on the PERA Board. We had the Bill but it didn't get a hearing by the Pension Commission or pass. We tried to get the PERA Board to support that but they didn't want to last year, they said they'd take it up at 'next years planning meeting.' That meeting is October 30th of this year and PERA Executive Director Doug Anderson reminded them of that. The new session will be coming up after elections. We will again push for a long overdue seat on the PERA Board and will be watching for other attempts to raid our healthy plan.  We look forward to a new session and new work on your...

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 .