Friday, May 14, 2021

PERA Board Discusses the Bill to 'study' adding 911 Dispatchers to Correctional Plan

 If you've been following this blog you know there is a Bill out there attempting to add 911 Dispatchers to the PERA Correctional plan, which would have very negative consequences for the Correctional Plan.

There is now another Bill SF 2485 to form a committee to 'study' adding Dispatchers to our pension. The MPPOA even wrote a letter supporting adding dispatchers to our pension. Two points, first off Dispatchers have a very important and grueling job, this is not a knock on them. Secondly, our pension is based on 95% inmate contact and our exposure to physical violence, disease and sometimes death. Dispatchers have no inmate contact.

The MPPOA decided to take me to task on Facebook.


Point one, it is a study to see if they should be added to our plan! Here's the Executive Director of PERA discussing the Bill at the May 13th meeting which I attended on-line. Here'a 48 second excerpt of exactly what the 'study' is.


So we see it is a study to possibly add 911 Dispatchers to our group and calls for the formation of a Committee. The Committee will include, among many, the PERA Director and someone from the Correctional plan chosen fortunately by PERA.

Point two, in their Facebook post the MPPOA says, "MPPOA WILL ALWAYS Look out for our Correctional members."  I didn't know the MPPOA has any FULL, voting Correctional members. Their own Membership Information page on the MPPOA website makes it clear you must be a Law Enforcement Officer with a license issued by the POST Board to be a full member!.  In Minnesota Correctional Officers are not licensed!

All of the MPPOA's members are in the Police and Fire Plan. Would Brian Peters support adding dispatchers to theirs? Why not?

In reality, the 911 Dispatchers deserve a good plan, but the Correctional Plan is not the place. They do not meet inmate contact criteria among many other reasons.


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