SF 4270

as introduced - 92nd Legislature (2021 - 2022) Posted on 03/25/2022 09:48am

A bill for an act
relating to retirement; Public Employees Retirement Association; excluding persons
employed by the Duluth Transit Authority under a collective bargaining agreement
with the Teamsters from participation in the general employees retirement plan;
amending Minnesota Statutes 2021 Supplement, section 353.01, subdivision 2b.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

Section 1.

Minnesota Statutes 2021 Supplement, section 353.01, subdivision 2b, is amended
to read:

Subd. 2b.

Excluded employees.

(a) The following public employees are not eligible to
participate as members of the association with retirement coverage by the general employees
retirement plan, the local government correctional employees retirement plan under chapter
353E, or the public employees police and fire retirement plan:

(1) persons whose annual salary from one governmental subdivision never exceeds an
amount, stipulated in writing in advance, of $5,100 if the person is not a school district
employee or $3,800 if the person is a school year employee. If annual compensation from
one governmental subdivision to an employee exceeds the stipulated amount in a calendar
year or a school year, whichever applies, after being stipulated in advance not to exceed the
applicable amount, the stipulation is no longer valid and contributions must be made on
behalf of the employee under section 353.27, subdivision 12, from the first month in which
the employee received salary exceeding $425 in a month;

(2) public officers who are elected to a governing body, city mayors, or persons who
are appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected office of a governing body, whose term of office
commences on or after July 1, 2002, for the service to be rendered in that elected position;

(3) election judges and persons employed solely to administer elections;

(4) patient and inmate personnel who perform services for a governmental subdivision;

(5) except as otherwise specified in subdivision 12a, employees who are employed solely
in a temporary position as defined under subdivision 12a, and employees who resign from
a nontemporary position and accept a temporary position within 30 days of that resignation
in the same governmental subdivision;

(6) employees who are employed by reason of work emergency caused by fire, flood,
storm, or similar disaster, but if the person becomes a probationary or provisional employee
within the same pay period, other than on a temporary basis, the person is a "public
employee" retroactively to the beginning of the pay period;

(7) employees who by virtue of their employment in one governmental subdivision are
required by law to be a member of and to contribute to any of the plans or funds administered
by the Minnesota State Retirement System, the Teachers Retirement Association, or the St.
Paul Teachers Retirement Fund Association, but this exclusion must not be construed to
prevent a person from being a member of and contributing to the Public Employees
Retirement Association and also belonging to and contributing to another public pension
plan or fund for other service occurring during the same period of time, and a person who
meets the definition of "public employee" in subdivision 2 by virtue of other service occurring
during the same period of time becomes a member of the association unless contributions
are made to another public retirement plan on the salary based on the other service or to the
Teachers Retirement Association by a teacher as defined in section 354.05, subdivision 2;

(8) persons who are members of a religious order and are excluded from coverage under
the federal Old Age, Survivors, Disability, and Health Insurance Program for the performance
of service as specified in United States Code, title 42, section 410(a)(8)(A), as amended, if
no irrevocable election of coverage has been made under section 3121(r) of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1954, as amended;

(9) persons who are:

(i) employed by a governmental subdivision who have not reached the age of 23 and
who are enrolled on a full-time basis to attend or are attending classes on a full-time basis
at an accredited school, college, or university in an undergraduate, graduate, or
professional-technical program, or at a public or charter high school;

(ii) employed as resident physicians, medical interns, pharmacist residents, or pharmacist
interns and are serving in a degree or residency program in a public hospital or in a public
clinic; or

(iii) students who are serving for a period not to exceed five years in an internship or a
residency program that is sponsored by a governmental subdivision, including an accredited
educational institution;

(10) persons who hold a part-time adult supplementary technical college license who
render part-time teaching service in a technical college;

(11) for the first three years of employment, foreign citizens who are employed by a
governmental subdivision, except that the following foreign citizens must be considered
included employees under subdivision 2a:

(i) H-1B, H-1B1, and E-3 status holders;

(ii) employees of Hennepin County or Hennepin Healthcare System, Inc.;

(iii) employees legally authorized to work in the United States for three years or more;
and

(iv) employees otherwise required to participate under federal law;

(12) public hospital employees who elected not to participate as members of the
association before 1972 and who did not elect to participate from July 1, 1988, to October
1, 1988;

(13) except as provided in section 353.86, volunteer ambulance service personnel, as
defined in subdivision 35, but persons who serve as volunteer ambulance service personnel
may still qualify as public employees under subdivision 2 and may be members of the Public
Employees Retirement Association and participants in the general employees retirement
plan or the public employees police and fire plan, whichever applies, on the basis of
compensation received from public employment service other than service as volunteer
ambulance service personnel;

(14) except as provided in section 353.87, volunteer firefighters, as defined in subdivision
36, engaging in activities undertaken as part of volunteer firefighter duties, but a person
who is a volunteer firefighter may still qualify as a public employee under subdivision 2
and may be a member of the Public Employees Retirement Association and a participant
in the general employees retirement plan or the public employees police and fire plan,
whichever applies, on the basis of compensation received from public employment activities
other than those as a volunteer firefighter;

(15) employees in the building and construction trades, as follows:

(i) pipefitters and associated trades personnel employed by Independent School District
No. 625, St. Paul, with coverage under a collective bargaining agreement by the pipefitters
local 455 pension plan who were either first employed after May 1, 1997, or, if first employed
before May 2, 1997, elected to be excluded under Laws 1997, chapter 241, article 2, section
12;

(ii) electrical workers, plumbers, carpenters, and associated trades personnel employed
by Independent School District No. 625, St. Paul, or the city of St. Paul, with coverage
under a collective bargaining agreement by the electrical workers local 110 pension plan,
the plumbers local 34 pension plan, or the carpenters local 322 pension plan who were either
first employed after May 1, 2000, or, if first employed before May 2, 2000, elected to be
excluded under Laws 2000, chapter 461, article 7, section 5;

(iii) bricklayers, allied craftworkers, cement masons, glaziers, glassworkers, painters,
allied tradesworkers, and plasterers employed by the city of St. Paul or Independent School
District No. 625, St. Paul, with coverage under a collective bargaining agreement by the
bricklayers and allied craftworkers local 1 pension plan, the cement masons local 633
pension plan, the glaziers and glassworkers local 1324 pension plan, the painters and allied
trades local 61 pension plan, or the plasterers local 265 pension plan who were either first
employed after May 1, 2001, or if first employed before May 2, 2001, elected to be excluded
under Laws 2001, First Special Session chapter 10, article 10, section 6;

(iv) plumbers employed by the Metropolitan Airports Commission, with coverage under
a collective bargaining agreement by the plumbers local 34 pension plan, who were either
first employed after May 1, 2001, or if first employed before May 2, 2001, elected to be
excluded under Laws 2001, First Special Session chapter 10, article 10, section 6;

(v) electrical workers or pipefitters employed by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation
Board, with coverage under a collective bargaining agreement by the electrical workers
local 292 pension plan or the pipefitters local 539 pension plan, who were first employed
before May 2, 2015, and elected to be excluded under Laws 2015, chapter 68, article 11,
section 5;

(vi) laborers and associated trades personnel employed by the city of St. Paul or
Independent School District No. 625, St. Paul, who are designated as temporary employees
with coverage under a collective bargaining agreement by a multiemployer plan as defined
in section 356.27, subdivision 1, who were either first employed on or after June 1, 2018,
or if first employed before June 1, 2018, elected to be excluded under Laws 2018, chapter
211, article 16, section 13; and

(vii) employees who are trades employees as defined in section 356.27, subdivision 1,
first hired on or after July 1, 2020, by the city of St. Paul or Independent School District
No. 625, St. Paul, except for any trades employee for whom contributions are made under
section 356.24, subdivision 1, clause (8), (9), or (10), by either employer to a multiemployer
plan as defined in section 356.27, subdivision 1;

(16) employees who are hired after June 30, 2002, solely to fill seasonal positions under
subdivision 12b which are limited in duration by the employer to a period of six months or
less in each year of employment with the governmental subdivision;

(17) persons who are provided supported employment or work-study positions by a
governmental subdivision and who participate in an employment or industries program
maintained for the benefit of these persons where the governmental subdivision limits the
position's duration to up to five years, including persons participating in a federal or state
subsidized on-the-job training, work experience, senior citizen, youth, or unemployment
relief program where the training or work experience is not provided as a part of, or for,
future permanent public employment;

(18) independent contractors and the employees of independent contractors;

(19) reemployed annuitants of the association during the course of that reemployment;

(20) persons appointed to serve on a board or commission of a governmental subdivision
or an instrumentality thereof; deleted text begin and
deleted text end

(21) persons employed as full-time fixed-route bus drivers by the St. Cloud Metropolitan
Transit Commission who are members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local
638 and who are, by virtue of that employment, members of the International Brotherhood
of Teamsters Central States pension plan deleted text begin . deleted text end new text begin ; and
new text end

new text begin (22) persons employed by the Duluth Transit Authority or any subdivision thereof, who
are members of the Teamsters General Local Union 346 and who are, by virtue of that
employment, members of the Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund.
new text end

(b) Any person performing the duties of a public officer in a position defined in
subdivision 2a, paragraph (a), clause (3), is not an independent contractor and is not an
employee of an independent contractor.

new text begin EFFECTIVE DATE. new text end

new text begin This section is effective on the date the persons employed by the
Duluth Transit Authority or any subdivision thereof become public employees as defined
in Minnesota Statutes, section 353.01, subdivision 2.
new text end