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The Mounds View Vision A Thriving Desirable Community Item No: 8G Meeting Date: February 24, 2020 Type of Business: Council Business Administrator Review: ____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Nyle Zikmund, City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Resolution 9246, Support HF XXXX Fire Pension Aid Apportionment Background/Discussion: Police and Fire pension plans receive state aid. Fire aid is distributed yearly by the state from revenue collected on the insurance industry primarily and secondarily from the general fund. Current law requires the aid to be deposited with a volunteer relief association if one exist. If not the aid is distributed to the municipality. For more than two decades, discussion on allowing the aid to be shared between the volunteer relief and the city has surfaced with respect to communities protected by combination departments – that is those who have both career and volunteers. The issue has risen to the top of the legislative arena over the past two/three years stemming from transition of volunteer departments to combination and in some cases; career. The 2018 legislature created two task forces (Fire Aid Apportionment and Conversions and Dissolutions) to study the issue and report back in 2019. As reported verbally and in many of my weekly written reports, I attended virtually all of these meetings. The task force completed their work and presented to the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement last year at one of their first meetings. However, no advocates were present at a subsequent meeting when the commission was putting together the bill and Representative O’Driscoll moved to lay the bills on the table when no one was present to answer questions. In reaching out to LCPR staff, League Staff, Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA), and Office of the State Auditor we confirmed that no one had worked on either issue. The State Auditor has a work group that reviewed the apportionment “bill” but did not take a position and the PERA Advisory Board for fire reliefs managed by them (State Plan) failed to reach a consensus and then adjourned for the year. SBM is in the state plan which operates different than the locally operated plans. In short, PERA has full administration, State Board of Investment has full investment oversight, and the City controls all decisions such as benefit increases. Local plans do all the administration, may invest with whomever they choose, and can – if they so choose, raise benefit levels without council approval if certain funding parameters are met.