Upcoming Commission meetings
No meetings scheduled. The final meeting of the Session was May 17, 2025 (Agenda, materials, and action).
For meetings earlier this year, go to 2025 meetings.
LCPR News
Probation Officers and 911 Telecommunicators Pension Plans Work Group
The 2025 Omnibus Pension and Retirement Bill (Laws 2025, Chapter 37, Article 17) requires LCPR staff to convene a work group for the purpose of determining the terms and conditions of new pension plans to be established for probation officers and 911 telecommunicators and recommending legislation to the Commission that will establish the plans.
The next meeting of the work group will take place on October 20th, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. in the Ladyslipper conference room, on the first floor of the Centennial Office Building, 658 Cedar Street, St. Paul.
Materials for prior and upcoming meetings are available here.
Members of the public may stream the meeting through this Youtube link. 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.
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 However, the Social Security Fairness Act, which was signed into law on January 5, 2025, repealed the WEP and GPO.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.
Firefighter relief associations no longer have to file an annual Investment Business Recipient Disclosure form!
The 2025 Omnibus Pension and Retirement bill, enacted as Chapter 37 of the 2025 session laws, repeals the requirement in Minnesota Statutes, section 356A.06, subdivision 5, to file an annual investment business recipient disclosure form. The requirement, in effect since 1989, meant the chief administrative officer of every firefighter relief association and other “covered pension plans” had to annually file with the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement a form that lists “the recipients of investment business placed with, or investment commissions allocated among, commercial banks, investment bankers, brokerage organizations, or other investment managers.” The repeal of this requirement in the 2025 pension bill means that, beginning August 1, 2025, firefighter relief associations no longer need to file the “Investment Business Recipient Disclosure Form” with the LCPR executive director. See Chapter 37, Article 8, Section 2.
The 2025 Omnibus Pension and Retirement Bill
The bill was signed into law by the Governor on Friday, May 23, 2025, as Laws 2025, Chapter 37. Links to the staff summaries, source bills, and legislative history are available on the 2025 Omnibus Pension and Retirement Bill page.
See previous LCPR News articles
Minnesota News
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
2025 NASRA Fast Facts & Helpful Resources on State and Local Government Retirement Systems
NASRA recently released an updated infographic detailing the significant economic footprint of of public retirement systems across the United States for 2025. See the 2025 infographic...
NASRA Report: Recent Changes to COLAs
Rising prices have been a concern for many retirees in recent years as inflation reached its highest levels in decades (see CPI-U data below). Cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) are intended to protect retirement benefits from a loss of purchasing power due to inflation. What changes have states made to COLAs provided by public pension plans during this period of high inflation? See the recent NASRA issue brief on COLAs, published in August 2025, for more information.
Issue in Brief on the Financial Outlook of Social Security
The Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College published an Issue in Brief on the financial outlook of social security. This brief analyzes the projected 75-year deficit for Social Security. The brief concludes that “Social Security is facing a long-term financing shortfall that equals about 1 percent of GDP. The changes required to fix the system are well within the bounds of fluctuations in spending on other pro¬grams in the past. Moreover, action needs to be taken before the OASI trust fund is depleted in 2033 to avoid a precipitous cut in benefits.” See the recent CRR Issue in Brief on Social Security, published in July 2025, for more information.
2023-24 Wisconsin Comparitive Study of Major Public Employee Retirement Systems
The study compares significant features and retirement benefits of 87 major state and local public retirement systems for general employees and teachers in the United States. The Wisconsin Legislative Council has prepared similar studies nearly every two years since 1982. Read the 2023-24 report...
See previous National News articles
Secure Choice News and Publications
Executive Director Announcement
At its meeting on September 24th, the Secure Choice board of directors appointed Chad Roberts as Executive Director. Chad’s career includes positions in law enforcement and public administration, most recently as the Deputy Executive Director and Chief Retirement Officer for the State of North Dakota Retirement & Investment Office. He begins as Executive Director for Secure Choice on November 3rd, 2025. Chad will assume the duties that have been handled during the past year by Interim Executive Director, Dave Bergstrom.
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.
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...
"..states are taking action to address the retirement challenges facing Americans by providing increased access to retirement plans. Since 2012, every state except Alabama has either enacted or introduced legislation that would establish state-facilitated retirement savings programs. These state-facilitated retirement programs offer a backstop for those working in jobs where employers do not offer retirement plans like a pension plan or 401(k) account." Read more...
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Minnesota Legislature
Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement