September 911 Dispatcher Pension Workgroup Update:
The meeting started out with numerous presentations on how busy 911 dispatchers are.
The Statewide Director of Communications from the State Patrol brought up that their dispatchers are now trained on how to give medical advice over the phone, I’m assuming CPR, prior they didn’t do that. He shared the story of a car crash call where a dispatcher gave that help to a person on the scene over the phone and how it ended well.
I pointed out that is the difference between Dispatchers and CO’s. They give advice over the phone, CO’s are required to perform CPR and get exposed to blood and body fluids from inmates. We have physical contact they do not.
The Executive Director of the LCPR, stated they are still waiting for more surveys to come in (we should have by next meeting). From what she saw most wanted to be in the PERA Correctional plan for the 1.9% payout and the 55 retirement. They are still waiting on many surveys from Cities, Counties, Unions and employers regarding their positions.
The Communications Lieutenant from Itasca County asked how CO’s got the Correctional Plan. I told them I was there at the early meetings in the late 90’s. Multiple Unions came together. We were opposed by Police and Fire, especially the MPPOA. We hired lobbyist Bob Johnson and were able to document higher injury and workers comp rates than even Police and Fire. It was based on inmate contact. If a CO blows a knee, they can’t work. If a dispatcher does, they can still sit at a desk.
Because the dispatchers want to go from a 1.7 payout in the General Plan to 1.9 in the Correctional I brought up the fact ours hasn’t been improved since its inception. We were told by the legislature back then, “you have your pension don’t come back. “ I put Doug Anderson of PERA and the Executive Director of the LCPR on notice. That if they want to add dispatch to our pension we will push for equity with the State Correctional Plan of a 2.2% payout.
The main direction appears to be adding them with credit for their years of service, something I pointed out we never had. I lost 9 years from the PERA General Plan when we switched. No CO working at the time had credit transferred into the Correctional Plan. A CO is 50% vested at 5 years and fully vested at 10. We had to wait to get vested.
They want full vesting at 5 years.
Doug Anderson Executive Director of PERA made a presentation showing it will cost, estimated on his calculations, $79 million to add them to our plan! He said to be exact there would have to be an official actuarial study. It could be as high as $90 million! The Executive Director of the LCPR, stated the State had not provided money for an actuarial study! So at this point there is no exact number for the cost to our pension or where that money would come from. And disability numbers were not included which would raise the numbers even higher.
*There were several actuarial studies done when creating the PERA Correctional Plan.
I gave them a final point to ponder. If they get the 55 retirement in our plan what about the gap between 55 and 65 for their health insurance? They said they didn’t want to open that can of worms. Their employers might not want to either. There’s nothing requiring them to continue covering them.
We don’t meet again until November.
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