New law modifies public employee retirement benefits

A new law makes technical and administrative changes to retirement plans for a number of public employees’ groups.

Sponsored by Rep. Mary Murphy (DFL-Hermantown) and Sen. Julie Rosen (R-Vernon Center), the law provides a framework for cities to change retirement plans when they transition from a volunteer fire department to a full-time one.

Other provisions of the law, which has various effective dates, include:

• authorizing new categories of investment for the State Board of Investment;

• allowing a municipality or independent nonprofit firefighting corporation to have its volunteer firefighters covered by the lump-sum portion of its retirement plan;

• allowing a Maplewood firefighter who was mistakenly not enrolled in the relief fund to receive credit for his period of service applied to his pension fund;

• increasing the maximum lump-sum pension payouts from volunteer firefighter relief associations from $10,000 to $15,000;

• allowing the allocation of state aid for certain firefighters’ relief associations, including the city of Eagan;

• allowing the city of Brooklyn Park to dissolve its volunteer firefighter relief association retirement agreement and pay recipients;

• allowing the cities of Ramsey and Nowthen to modify their volunteer firefighters relief association benefit plans;

• providing a framework for volunteer firefighter relief associations to convert from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans; and

• providing an annuity rate extension for some participants in the MSRS Unclassified Plan.

HF3903/SF3808*/CH108

SF3808* / HF3903 / CH108