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The good news is real. HB 45 — now Act 609 — is the most significant improvement to officers' benefits in years. The accrual rate rises for service on or after January 1, 2027, ending the post-2012 hire-date disparity, and the Act strengthens COLA funding, improves DROP, and creates a survivor-benefit remedy for certain families of officers killed in the line of duty whose employers failed to enroll them. MPERS's June 2 update covers the details.
Separately, the employer contribution rate drops to 29.35% on July 1 — the lowest in more than a decade.
The harder news is about collection. Two other bills became law: Act 922 and Act 936. During the session, MPERS offered to end the litigation entirely — drop every pending suit, file no new ones, and collect through Treasury certification instead — in exchange for a one-time fix for the officers who had been left out. The offer was not accepted.
Then, on the Senate floor, an amendment stripped Treasury certification itself: the one tool that let MPERS collect overdue contributions without going to court. A second bill, Act 936, made the remaining litigation slower and more expensive by changing venue for MPERS — and only MPERS — enforcement suits.
The result is backwards. The stated concern was too much litigation. MPERS offered to stop suing and collect administratively instead. The administrative tool was taken away, and the likely result is lengthier, more expensive litigation — not less. And because the system is funded by its employers, that cost lands on municipalities either way — whether MPERS spends to collect or a town spends to resist. The only certain outcome is more spent, by everyone, on litigation.
Here is why it matters to officers. A full-time municipal police officer becomes a member of MPERS by law the moment he qualifies. But when an employer fails to report his pay and remit his contributions — and in some cases even withholds the officer's share from his paycheck and never sends it in — the money that funds his pension, disability, and survivor benefit goes uncollected. The officer paid, and the money never arrived.
When collection is made harder, the officers whose protection depends on it are left exposed, and the municipalities that follow the law are left to cover the cost.
HB 31 — the municipal opt-out bill — did not advance this session. But the issue has not gone away, and MPERS expects it to return. The Board of Trustees holds to a simple principle: every municipal police officer deserves survivor, disability, and retirement protection, no matter the size of the municipality served.
This is not over. Before the next session, MPERS will work with the Louisiana Municipal Association, municipal officials, and legislators on a real fix: end the affidavit that causes these disputes, make compliance workable for the affected municipalities, and resolve the problem at its source — so the next officer is covered before a tragedy, not after.
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