Minnesota’s legislature has a bipartisan committee of senators and representatives known as the Legislative Committee on Pensions and Retirement. It makes the fundamental decisions about our retirement security, administered on behalf executive branch employees by the Minnesota State Retirement System (MSRS) as well as all of the other state-wide pension systems for public employees. Because bargaining units are prohibited from negotiating retirement benefits under state law, it’s vital that unions track what the LCPR does as well as advocate on behalf of current employees and retirees.
The Public Employment Pension Committee (PEPC) is the labor group that does this. Comprised of representatives from a cross-section of unions in public service, PEPC’s mission is to keep union leadership informed and advocate for the interests of our members’ retirement security.
For the 2022-23 legislative session, PEPC is monitoring what the legislature is doing with the historic budget surplus and advocating for an omnibus pension bill. When taking into account inflation on future expenditures, the value of the surplus remains around $17.5 billion dollars. Competing among the many priorities for those dollars, ranging from children, to infrastructure, and to seniors, PEPC is doing its best to make sure the state’s own workers aren’t left out.
Although the end of the legislative session is a long way off, there seems to be some appetite at the capitol to make small changes to the state retirement system. Increasing the cap on COLAS and ensuring equity across all of the plans (that they all are governed by the same rules) are examples. The appetite to make big changes – e.g., raising the service credit or lowering the age of retirement – does not seem to exist among the legislators. The combined plans have liabilities well past $100B; even a small change is very expensive. More details will become available as the legislature progresses.
PEPC nonetheless strongly advocates for any and every positive benefit for state workers.