The Commission is looking for a new
Executive Director!
Susan Lenczewski, the current Executive Director, is retiring on January 8, 2027. The LCC is now accepting
applications from qualified candidates to fill this position. If interested, please see the
announcement and
the
position
description. If you would like to apply without using the application portal linked in the
announcement, please send your cover letter and resume to the LCC Director of Human Resources, Rosie Lackner,
at rosie.lackner@lcc.mn.gov.
Upcoming Commission Meeting
No meetings scheduled.
The Executive Committee of the LCPR met on Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 8:30 AM — This meeting was held virtually
and broadcast on the LCPR YouTube.
See agenda and materials
here.
For meetings earlier this biennium, go to
2025-2026 meetings.
Work Group on Duty Disability and the Public Safety Officer's Benefit Account
Chapter 106, Article 12,
Section 2, of the 2026 session laws establishes a work group for the purpose of recommending legislation
that would reform duty disability for members of the PERA Police & Fire Plan and
ensure that duty-disabled members and retirees have access to affordable health insurance coverage.
The work group, initially convened by LCPR staff, will consist of representatives from 15 different agencies,
labor organizations, and associations, and 4 legislators appointed by House and Senate caucus
leadership. The work group is directed to meet during the 2026 interim.
UPCOMING MEETING:
October 1st
The upcoming meeting will take place at 1:00 PM in the Centennial Office Building, 658 Cedar Street,
St. Paul.
Materials for all meetings are available
here.
Members of the public may stream the meeting through the
LCPR YouTube Channel. If you are not a member of the work group, and wish to attend the meeting in-person,
please
contact Aleena Wilson (aleena.wilson@lcpr.mn.gov)
at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. The work group will not take testimony and time for public
comment will be limited and only if time permits.
Work Group on Vesting and Emergency Medical Providers in Relief Associations and the SVF Plan
Chapter 106, Article 12, Section 1, of the 2026 session laws establishes a work group for the purpose of
recommending
legislation that would shorten vesting schedules and require including emergency medical providers in
firefighter relief
associations and the Statewide Volunteer Firefighter Plan.
UPCOMING MEETING:
October 7th
Materials for all meetings are available here.
Members may attend in person or remotely. Meetings will be livestreamed for public viewing via the
LCPR YouTube Channel.
The 2026 Omnibus Pension and Retirement Bill is now law!
The bill was signed into law by the Governor on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, as
Laws 2026, Chapter 106.
The
LCPR Staff Summary of the bill is now available.
Highlights of Chapter 106, the 2026 Omnibus Pension and Retirement bill:
- New pension plans for probation officers and 911 telecommunicators—the MSRS Probation and
Telecommunicator
Retirement Subplan and the PERA Local Government Probation and Telecommunicator Retirement Plan—to open
January
1, 2027, providing members with undiscounted retirement at age 60
- Waiting period to receive a first COLA for retirees of the PERA Police and Fire Plan reduced from 24 months
to 12 months
- Employee contributions reduced from 6.83% to 6% of pay, employer contributions reduced from 10.25% to 9% of
pay,
and the cap on COLAs is increased from 2.5% to 3% for the PERA Local Government Correctional Service
Retirement Plan
- Employee contributions reduced from 9% to 8% of pay for members of St. Paul Teachers Retirement Fund
Association
- Work groups to meet during the interim on:
- shortening vesting schedules and requiring coverage of emergency medical providers by firefighter relief
associations and the Statewide Volunteer Firefighter Plan
- reforming duty disability and providing access to affordable health insurance coverage to retirees and
duty disabled members of the PERA Police and Fire Plan
- Funding provided for benefit and contribution improvements:
- One-time payments totaling $3 million in FY27 to the new probation and telecommunicator pension plans
- Annual direct state aids to Police and Fire Plan and St. Paul Teachers and appropriations to agencies
totaling $12.4 million for FY27 and $25.4 million for FY28-29
For more information on the 2026 Omnibus Pension and Retirement Bill, see the
2026 Omnibus Pension and Retirement Bill webpage,
which includes links to staff summaries, source bills and amendments, and the legislative history.
LCPR News
Update! LCPR staff publication “Supplemental Employer Contributions and Direct State Aid
Payments to Public Pension Plans” updated for new state aids in the 2026 omnibus bill
Minnesota law provides for several types of supplemental employer contributions and state aid. The LCPR staff
publication, titled
Supplemental Employer Contributions and Direct State Aid Payments to Public Pension Plans, describes
each
of these contributions and state aids, the plan to which the payment is made, when the aid expires, and the
statute
that requires the payment. The publication is now updated to include the new state aids in the 2026 omnibus
pension
bill to the PERA Police and Fire Plan and St. Paul Teachers Retirement Fund Association.
Plan administrators and vendors of 403(b) or 457(b) plans no longer have to file annual fee and rate of
return disclosure with the LCPR!
Minnesota Statutes, section 356.24, subdivision 3, paragraph (c), requires the plan administrator or vendor of
a 403(b) tax-sheltered annuity or 457(b) deferred compensation plan to provide annual statements to participants
about administrative and investment fees and rates of return for the prior one-, five-, and ten-year periods.
Paragraph (c) also requires the plan administrator or vendor to file a copy of this statement with the executive
director of the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement.
The 2026 Omnibus Pension and Retirement bill eliminates the requirement to file the annual disclosure
statement with the LCPR, effective May 20, 2026. See
Chapter 106, Article 10. Plan administrators and vendors must continue to provide the annual fee
and ROR statement to participants as required by
Section 356.24, subdivision 3, paragraph (c), which is not changed in the 2026 pension bill.
New Pension Plans for Probation Officers and Public Safety Telecommunicators
The 2026 Omnibus Pension and Retirement bill
(Laws 2026, Chapter 106, Articles 4-6) establishes the MSRS Probation and Telecommunicator Retirement
Subplan
and the PERA Local Government Probation and Telecommunicator Retirement Plan, effective January 1, 2027. The
Articles
in Chapter 106 that are relevant to the new subplan and plan are Articles 4 to 6. For an overview of the
features of
the new subplan and plan, see pages 5 to 8 in the
Summary of HF4074, the Second Engrossment.
Information and materials related to the Probation Officers and 911 Telecommunicators
Pension Plans Work Group, including the Work Group’s report and recommended legislation,
are available here.
See previous LCPR
News articles
Minnesota News
PTSD-Related Leave Rising Among Minnesota Firefighters
A recent Star Tribune article, published on
May 14, 2026, details how PTSD‑related leaves have increased in the past year for firefighters in the
Minneapolis Fire Department. The article notes:
- More firefighters out on leave has resulted in increased overtime costs and stretched resources. Currently,
30 firefighters, or 7% of the Minneapolis fire department, are on leave due to PTSD.
- The state (Staff background note: specifically, PERA) pays a disability pension that is at least 60% of
salary tax-free for five years or until age 55, when the disability pension converts to a retirement pension.
- To help police officers and firefighters return to duty rather than take a disability pension, a law change
in 2023 requires police officers and firefighters to participate in up to 32 weeks of mental health treatment
before being approved for a disability pension. An account administered by the Department of Public Service
reimburses cities and counties for the cost of the treatment and continued health insurance coverage during
the leave. DPS reimbursed the Minneapolis Fire Department about $600,000 last year for that type of leave.
The concerns raised by the article echo concerns heard by the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement
during the 2026 session, resulting in the establishment of a work group to meet during the interim and address
these concerns, especially because the DPS account is anticipated to run dry in 2028. The work group provision
is Article 12,
Section 2, of Laws 2026, Chapter 106, the 2026 omnibus pension and retirement bill.
Private equity investments and SBI
Earlier this month, the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence published a “Fiscal Focus” titled
“Public Funds, Private Deals: Evaluating State Oversight and Governance of Private Equity Investments.”
This 16-page report is a “must-read” for anyone interested in the SBI’s investment of approximately 17% of the
nearly $150 billion in assets in its portfolio, most of which fund pensions for the state’s public employees. As
stated in the summary, the report:
examines the current state of the private equity industry, the
governance and transparency challenges inherent to this asset class, and Minnesota’s response to them. …Taken
together, Minnesota’s governance of private equity investments reflects many strengths. SBI has built a robust
oversight and management infrastructure, employs internal controls and best practices to assess reported asset
values, actively manages fees and expenses, and has worked to integrate private equity’s unconventional
performance measures into its total fund performance scorecard.
Yet on key matters of public disclosure, SBI falls short of
best practice. Most notably, fee and expense data deemed “public at all times” under state statute are not
disclosed in fund level returns. More importantly, current performance reporting does not answer the central
question of all pension stakeholders: Do private equity returns justify their considerably greater expense
compared to public market investments available at a fraction of the cost? We recommend that SBI publicly
disclose supplemental analyses commonly used by scholars and industry practitioners to address this issue.
See
previous Minnesota News articles
National News and Publications
Updated Public Plans Data Just Released by the Center for Retirement Research
The Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College has
issued the August update of Public Plans Data (PPD), which
now includes the most current data for plans that released financial reports and actuarial valuations by
May 30, 2026.
This is a treasure trove of data on public pension plans and makes it easy to compare our public pension
plans in Minnesota nationally and to other states' plans. The PPD is produced by the CRR, MissionSquare
Research Institute, National Association of State Retirement Administrators, and Government Finance
Officers Association.
Please note that because the PPD data spans back to 2001, the data for Minnesota still reports
the Duluth Teachers Retirement Fund Association and the Minneapolis Employees Retirement Fund as if
they are still separate plans, which they are not.
2026 edition of Equable’s State of Pensions Report is now available
The seventh edition of the State of Pensions report is out, offering an updated look at funding trends,
investment performance, and long‑term challenges facing public retirement systems. Prepared by the
Equable Institute, a bipartisan nonprofit organization, the report “analyzes trends in public pension
funding, investments, contributions, cash flows, and benefits for 253 of the largest statewide and
municipal retirement systems in all 50 states."
It’s an easily readable compilation of the status of public pension plans across the nation. Read the
report here.
Are retirement plans for public employees achieving the goal of an 80% income replacement rate in
retirement?
Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) recently published a report assessing the
success of state retirement programs in achieving the desired 80% income replacement target in
retirement. TIAA examined which types of retirement plans—defined benefit, defined contribution, cash
balance, or hybrid—most often reach that benchmark. TIAA found that that, regardless of plan design,
without Social Security coverage, public sector employees will generally not achieve 80% income
replacement in retirement, potentially a concern for the employees covered by the roughly 20% of state
retirement plans that are not coordinated with Social Security. Read the full report here.
LCPR Staff Memo: Social Security Fairness Act
Historically, two federal laws—the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset
(GPO)—reduced Social Security benefits for people who received a pension for work on which they did not
pay Social Security taxes. However, the Social Security Fairness Act, which was signed into law on
January 5, 2025, repealed the WEP and GPO. Due to the repeal, the Social Security Administration began
issuing retroactive benefit payments and increasing monthly payments for retirees previously affected by
the WEP and GPO. For more information on the background of the WEP and GPO and impact of the Social
Security Fairness Act, see
the LCPR Staff Memo on the Social Security Fairness Act.
See previous National News articles
Secure Choice News and Publications
Secure Choice Retirement Board of Directors Annual Report
The Board of Directors of the Secure Choice Retirement Program has issued its first annual report
required under
Minnesota Statutes, Section
187.08,
Subd. 8. The report provides data on program outcomes, participant enrollment, employer
participation, opt‑outs,
plan expenses, progress toward savings goals, program impact on state safety‑net programs, and any
penalties or enforcement
actions.
Click
here to view the 2026 report.
Minnesota Secure Choice Partnership with Colorado's SecureSavings
At its meeting on June 17th, the Secure Choice board of directors approved a partnership with
Colorado’s SecureSavings Program. Partnering with an established state program is anticipated to lower
start-up costs and participant fees and facilitate the sharing of best practices.
On December 2, 2025, the Colorado Department of the Treasury issued a press release on the partnership
between the Colorado SecureSavings Program and Minnesota Secure Choice Retirement Program. You can read
the full press release here.
State auto-IRA programs gain steam as interstate pact, public support grow. (Pensions & Investments,
5/17/2024)
"More than 3 in 4 Americans (77%) agree that state-facilitated retirement savings programs are a
good idea...In addition, the overwhelming majority of Americans (82%) also say they would participate
in state-facilitated programs, up from 75% in 2020..." Read
more...
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Minnesota Legislature
Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement