2024 Legislative Update

The 2024 Pension and Retirement Policy and Supplemental Budget Bill, which includes proposals from the State Auditor’s Fire Relief Association Working Group, was signed into law by Governor Walz on May 15. The Working Group proposals include the following changes:

• Specifying the period of time over which investment returns must be allocated to deferred member accounts for relief associations with a defined contribution plan;
• Defining the benefit calculation and reporting requirements that apply when a relief association is involuntarily dissolved;
• Adding definitions to the relief association statutes of “volunteer,” “paid on-call,” “part-time,” and “full time/career” firefighter;
• Updating firefighter and relief association references to reflect the new definitions; and
• Clarifying when municipal ratification of a benefit level or bylaw change is required.

The 2024-2025 Fire Relief Association Working Group will start meeting this summer. Please send any topics for consideration to rose.hennessy-allen@osa.state.mn.us.

Published last in the May 2024 Pension Newsletter