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Lawmakers move to fix police and fire retirement plan
Officers and firefighters with PTSD will be required to try mental health treatment before they can take disability-related early retirement.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Senate Thursday night passed the duty disability reform bill, in an effort to shore up the statewide retirement plan for police and firefighters.
The fund has been hit hard in the past few years, due to a wave of early retirements from post-traumatic stress. The legislation is an attempt to slow the impact of so many officers and firefighters leaving the field due to mental health injuries incurred on the job.
“The situation now is that the pension fund, PERA Police and Fire, is being depleted,” Sen. Nick Frenz of North Mankato, the lead author of a bill, told KARE.
“With an increase in claims some cities are seeing a bigger hit to their budget, partly because health care costs are going up and partly because the number of people on duty disability is increasing.”
Twelve Republicans joined 28 Democrats in voting for the bill. It already passed the House once, but the House will need to concur with an amendment the Senate added. If that happens, it will go to Gov. Walz’s desk to be signed into law.
Civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder sparked a wave of post-traumatic stress claims, first against he Workers Compensation system, and next to the state’s Public Employees Retirement Association Police and Fire retirement plan.
The bill devotes part of the state’s budget surplus to stabilize that system, but also make a key change for those seeking a duty-related mental injury. Officers and firefighters experiencing PTSD will need to seek treatment first.
They’ll receive 24 months of mental health treatment before they can be placed on duty-related early retirement. They’ll continue in their status as a paid, full-time employee during that treatment period.
“If they’re better after 24 weeks and can return to duty that’s great, if they can find another job with the police or sheriff or firefighters, that’s great,” Sen. Frentz explained.
“What we’re trying to do with the bill first and foremost is to take care of those people that keep us safe, by providing treatment, by protecting the plan status so they can have a fair retirement and we can recruit the next generation of police, fire and paramedics.”
The plan has the support of the statewide police and firefighting groups, because the alternative would be to raise retirement payroll deductions for active duty public safety workers.
Cities and counties also support the bill because of the financial burdens they’ve faced with PTSD-related duty disability claims. Those municipalities are required to pay ongoing health coverage for those public safety employees who go on duty disability.
Jenny Max, the Nisswa City Administrator, told lawmakers earlier in the session that her city will have to raise local property taxes to cover that cost for one officer.
“A longtime officer of the City of Nisswa filed for duty disability benefits and the city was informed those benefits were approved by PERA. The initial financial impact of this one duty disability claim was over $350,000 that would expand over 24 years resulting in an accumulative 14% levy increase.”
In a Pension Commission hearing March 20, PERA director Doug Anderson said current retirees have nothing to worry about, but the system will need to be shored up if the early retirements continue at this pace.
“The amount of disability retirees in recent years has had a really significant impact. Our estimates are that if this doesn’t change it will increase the cost of the plan by $40 million per year. That’s about 4 percent of payroll,” Anderson told lawmakers.
The bill drew opposition from some quarters because it would change what’s known as the reemployment offset for some retirees. It would lower the amount of benefits some firefighters and police get if they’ve taken new jobs that pay more money than their original public safety jobs did.
“We believe it more fairly requires disability recipients that can work to help support the health of the fund from which they benefit,” Anderson explained.
Officers and firefighters who’ve contributed to the retirement fund for 20 years before their work-related injury would not lose any of their disability checks to these offsets. Those who haven’t found other jobs won’t lose any benefits to offsets.
During that joint hearing, Samantha Steward of the Meuser, Yackley and Rowland law firm warned the changes could be devastating to those currently on duty disability early retirement.
Meuser, Yackley and Rowland specializes in representing law enforcement officers and other first responders seeking to file duty disability complaints. It has represented hundreds of Minneapolis Police Department officers who filed Workers Comp claims and later took early retirement through the PERA Police and Fire Plan.
The U.S. Army says 19-year-old William E. Colby was reported missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950. His remains were identified just this year using DNA technology.
MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly 74 years to the day since he was officially deemed Missing in Action during the Korean war, a Minneapolis soldier finally reached his final resting place.
The burial at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, which came with full military honors, brought closure to the family of Army Corporal William Colby, but it couldn’t bring back the family – and memories – that have long since passed.
“I was little,” said Jinny Bouvette, Corporal Colby’s cousin, who is also among the few surviving family members who ever met him. “We were about nine years difference when he joined the service, I was ten.”
For years, Bouvette says her memories of her cousin Billy, were always clouded by sadness by what happened just months after he deployed to fight in the Korean War.
Colby was just 19 years old and serving in the Korean War when he was declared missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950, after his unit was attacked by the Chinese People’s Army as they attempted to withdraw from the Chosin Reservoir.
“They figure that’s where Billy was,” Bouvette said, pointing to a green circle on a printed map of the Chosin Reservoir. “That’s where he was the last time that he was reported (alive).”
The young soldier could not be recovered following the battle, and the U.S. Army issued a presumptive finding of death on Dec. 31, 1953.
“We never thought of him as being killed in action, we always thought of him as just missing,” Bouvette said. “My aunt, she always thought he was alive somewhere.”
His fate was finally confirmed for family members by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on May 2, 2024, after Colby’s remains were identified from 55 boxes of remains returned to the U.S. by the North Korean government in 2018.
The process required a DNA analysis of his remains and a sample from a living relative before it could be matched and verified.
Bouvette says representatives initially tried to reach her, but it wasn’t until learning that her aunt and cousin had submitted those DNA samples that she realized what was happening.
“At first I thought they were just people trying to scam old people, and I wouldn’t answer them,” she said, with a laugh. “But eventually, that’s how I found out that he was really, really gone.”
Just a few months later, the Army’s Past Conflict Repatriations Branch helped return his remains, along with a jacket adorned with a full accounting of his honors.
“He didn’t get them when he was alive,” Bouvette said. “So I told them to put them in the casket with him, so he’s got them now.”
She did decide to hold on to one of his awards for herself, Colby’s Purple Heart.
“I just can’t tell you what it feels like,” she said, looking at the military medal in her hand. “It fills your heart right up. It just fills your heart right up.”
Yet it can’t quite compare to seeing his procession finally reach its end.
“My heart is so full… it is overflowing,” she said. “I just can’t… I have no words. I’m just glad that he’s here, and to know he’s home now. He’s home.”
JayCee Cooper filed a lawsuit against USA Powerlifting after the organization banned her from participating in women’s competitions.
SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The conversation inside the Minnesota State Capitol on Tuesday was focused on sports, but a different type of competition was taking place inside the court chambers. Two opposing sides are vying for the Minnesota Supreme Court to rule in their favor in the case of Cooper v. USA Powerlifting.
Transgender woman and athlete JayCee Cooper filed discrimination charges with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in 2019 after USA Powerlifting banned her from participating in women’s competitions. In 2021, Cooper filed a lawsuit against USA Powerlifting.
The lawsuit claims USA Powerlifting’s ban on transgender women is “an outlier among international, national and local sports organizations,” pointing to the International Olympic Committee’s framework regarding inclusion of athletes and their gender identities.
The case made its way through the state’s courts over several years before landing in the hands of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Oral arguments took place Tuesday morning, in which Cooper was represented by Gender Justice attorney Christy Hall and USA Powerlifting was represented by attorney Ansis Viksnins.
Gender Justice is a legal nonprofit organization based in St. Paul. In a press conference Tuesday morning, the organization’s legal director Jess Braverman said USA Powerlifting is violating Cooper’s rights under the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
“Every Minnesotan deserves the freedom to pursue their dreams without fear of exclusion or discrimination,” Braverman said. “Ms. Cooper was denied that right, solely because she is transgender.”
Viksnins, the attorney representing USA Powerlifting, said Cooper was excluded from women’s competitions due to her biological sex, not gender identity. “It’s not discrimination based on gender identity. That’s the problem for Ms. Cooper’s case: that the differentiation here was because of her biological sex, not for gender identity.”
In 2021, USA Powerlifting launched its MX category, providing a separate division for athletes of all gender identities. “It doesn’t solve the problem of transgender women being barred from women’s competitions, which is the issue here,” Braverman said.
There is no clear timeline as to when the Supreme Court will makes its decision on the case.
The portion of the Kellogg-Third Street Bridge over I-94 is coming down.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The portion of the Kellogg-Third Street Bridge over I-94 is coming down this weekend.
Demolition started in August but they’ve been doing one section at a time. MnDOT says to expect jackhammering around the clock.
City engineers first noticed cracks in its supports in 2014 and limited its capacity. But it’s taken 10 years for the city to come up with the $91 million it will take to build a new one, and it won’t be finished until 2027.
I-94 will be closed this weekend between 35E and Highway 61 in St. Paul.
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