President LeDoux called the July 12, 2022, meeting to order at 0802 hours.
Present were President LeDoux, Vice President Beasley, North Weinrich, South Theel, Secretary Harjes, Treasurer Orpen, 2000 Phillips, 2100 Bormann, 2200 Dellwo, 2300 Larsen, 2400 Cederstrom, 2500 Hanson, 2600 McClure, 2700 McGrew, 2800 Johnson, 2900 Hanson, 3100 Pearson and 3200 Danielson.
Absent was Business Manager Baker
Moment of silence for fallen law enforcement officers
Pledge of allegiance
Motion to accept the April 2022 minutes: Motion by 2900 Hanson, seconded by South Theel: CARRIED
Chief’s time:
1000: Colonel Langer and Lt Col. Schrofer arrived
We have all this activity going on lately (HEAT, Project 20(22), Minneapolis, State Fair, etc. I am trying to articulate the best I can that these programs getting all the exposure, but we still have our good solid work happening out there every day. We need help at the State Fair, and we will have to fill those shifts using reverse seniority if needed. I’m hopeful we get there with volunteers. HEAT continues to go very well. I appreciate your work on that. The Minneapolis high visibility patrols are going well, but I also think that we can become stale or predictable with this program. Project 20(22) is also going very well, but there has been declining interest. The street racing detail went very well over the weekend, and we backfilled the vacancies in the stations with overtime.
Fatal crashes are down about 17% in the state right now.
42 cadets start in the academy on Sunday. 14 LETO cadets and 28 traditional cadets. We are having a discussion this week regarding the idea of having a lateral academy. The LETO applicant pool is suffering as of lately.
Discussion with Internal Affairs to get investigations down to 60-90 days. They are hiring two positions that will help alleviate ADA and other job duties from Internal Affairs. There is a plan in place but will take some time to get there.
We have been trying to include slightly more bullet points on policy changes. There is an updated state unit damage policy coming up that will simplify and define state unit crashes/damage/legal intervention much better.
Our video review language with a trooper involved shooting doesn’t work. Today, when you are a subject of an investigation, it is impossible to give permission to the trooper to watch the video. We are looking at policy changes to improve the general order language.
Summer visits are starting soon, and CIST is coming up quickly.
Expense report reimbursements is an expense reimbursement and not a per diem. We don’t collect receipts and it’s not our intention to go that direction. I’ve thought about requiring receipts, but I don’t want to go down that road with the extra work involved. We want to be sure that these are truly reimbursement and not per diem. The other thing that would be helpful is to include the destination lodging name. It’s not worth the ramifications of not being truthful on the expense report.
South follow-up: Why do we get taxed on the reimbursement for non-lodging travel status?
President follow-up: If we could get an explanation, that would be great. When I do my in-person MSRS duties, I have never been taxed for the meal reimbursement.
CHQ follow-up from MMB policy: Employees are reimbursed for the actual cost of a meal, not to exceed the maximum established in the applicable collective bargaining agreement or compensation plan. Cost of a meal includes tax and a reasonable gratuity and does not include alcoholic beverages. Agencies must establish procedures to verify that employees do not treat meal reimbursements as a per diem arrangement.
According to IRS regulations, reimbursements for meal expenses on trips not involving an overnight stay are taxable income. Therefore, when the expenses are paid, federal, state, FICA, and Medicare taxes will be withheld from the employee’s pay, and the amount of the expense will be included in wages on the employee’s W-2 form. The overnight stay distinction applies whether or not the employee incurs a lodging expense. (For example, if the employee stays with friends or relatives at no charge, any meal expenses for that trip are considered Meals With Lodging (not taxable) even though there will be no lodging expense reimbursement.
2600 follow-up: Is this something we can talk about on the front end now regarding a bagged breakfast or a granola bar not qualifying as a “breakfast”?
CHQ: Discuss specific scenarios or questions with your supervisor if you encounter them.
Backpay wasn’t implemented very well. The communication has been lackluster. Hopefully it will be resolved next pay period.
Questions for the Chief
3200: No questions.
3100: I’m glad to hear about the talk of the lateral academy. How is a lateral pay rate decided?
CHQ: The person must supply a letter from their prior agency indicating the years of full-time service as a law enforcement officer. The request then goes through numerous people until it gets to my desk to approve. The step applied is based upon how many full years of full-time service they have with their prior agency. Sometimes you get people that worked part-time or worked in the jail or even military job roles which doesn’t qualify for the step increase. The language in the contract is very clear and descriptive.
MLEA Contract Article 28, Section 2, M: Credit for Previous Law Enforcement Experience. The Chief of the State Patrol may grant a new employee credit for previous full-time employment as a peace officer, as defined by Minn. Stat. § 626.05, subdivision 2, or similar law of another state. Such credit shall determine only the new employee’s initial placement on the salary grid. Regardless of whether a new employee is given such credit, their seniority shall be determined from their appointment to the classification of Trooper consistent with the provisions of Article 26, Section 1.
A Trooper, given previous work credit, shall be entitled to future step increases in accordance with Section 2 Progression. The Chief’s decision to grant or not grant credit for previous employment and the determination of the amount of credit cannot be grieved.
3100 follow-up: Why are there still inconsistencies in lateral pay when a new hire comes to us? I have an example of a Trooper that was actually paid less by the MSP than his prior agency.
CHQ: I trust that HR does this process correctly before it gets to me. If you have details, please send them to me and I will look into the issue. Everyone that comes to us with previous service, I bring them in at the highest step possible based upon their previous service.
President follow-up: Thank you for looking into that.
3100: Regarding a public safety statement, are our lieutenants aware of what these are? On a particular incident these questions were asked over an hour and half later, which is way beyond the scope of the public safety statement and now violating troopers’ rights.
CHQ: I’ve been comfortable with the media information provided in critical incidents.
President follow-up: When we went through training put on by the BCA, they recommended to have this in policy. Is this something we should consider adding to our policy to have a clear definition of what a public safety statement and the scope of one?
CHQ: Every problem in a critical incident has to do with communication. The lieutenants have been exposed to public safety statements at the most recent lieutenant’s meeting.
2900: Is there a reason we’re sticking with Spiewak versus looking at another vendor?
CHQ: Everyone originally wanted Spiewak. Spiewak needs to fix the issues that we’re aware of. I don’t have a good answer. We can always switch, but I’m always hesitant.
2300 follow-up: The shirts don’t look good, and the sizing is inaccurate. The uniforms don’t look good.
2800: What are some of the changes that we are implementing after the recruiting meeting?
CHQ: We didn’t do the written tests. Performing PT tests in the districts. Discussions about a lateral academy. Those are some of the things we were able to do right now. There are other things we’re unable to do right now.
North: Where are we at with the last contract with the retention bonuses?
CHQ: That are remains to be seen and nothing has been implemented on it, but we need to start moving.
2800: Why are we double recording the numbers with HEAT and ROAR?
CHQ: It’s simple, at the end of each one of those events, it’s a quick way to get the information from these events and share it publicly.
North: Why can’t we log into a specific beat to capture that data?
CHQ: We are unable to capture the detail level if we were to do that.
2800: Thanks for talking about the internal affair timelines. It’s very taxing for our members.
2800: I would like to see more agency training on a critical incident at CIST. I don’t think our Troopers are very comfortable with the process if they are involved in a critical incident.
President follow-up: Have we given thought to our board members attending it? Captain Schaap is also presenting in the training.
CHQ: Let’s talk about this offline.
2800: You mentioned that you went to US Army Carlisle barracks, can you talk about that?
CHQ: Every state can nominate a person to go there every year. It was an incredible amount of information. They are there studying democracy, army recruiting, war and ways to make the world a better place.
2700: Are THC edibles that are legal under state law now ok for Troopers to use off duty?
CHQ: No. I would say that is a really bad idea. There’s more to follow on this.
Vice president follow-up: On that similar topic, I don’t ever see a lot of information coming out to our entire agency regarding some of those very challenging changes for Troopers to understand what that means.
CHQ: Sgt Tyler Milless is working on it and it will be Grapevine tomorrow.
2600: Will there be policy changes made based upon the environment we’re operating in within Minneapolis? I appreciate you doing your best to keep us out of that environment. I don’t want to put our members in a difficult spot.
CHQ: The short answer is no. It’s not how we train and not who we are. It would be impossible to train Troopers on two different standards.
2500: I want to clarify an expense report related question. If someone were to spend more than what is allowed, and claim the highest allowable amount, is that person going to be flagged?
CHQ: You are not going to be flagged. If you have an expense, make sure your report is accurate up to allowable amounts by contract.
2500: If the multiple academies a year is going to be an ongoing item, is there ever going to be talk about an increase in pay for performing instructor duties to help keep people interested in it?
CHQ: I’ve never been a huge fan of us paying more for instructors. It would be a considerable fiscal note for us.
2400: With the lieutenant test, why can’t the score stand from the previous test?
CHQ: From a fairness perspective it would create issues if test questions changed from year to year. I’m not interested in changing the test right now.
2300 follow-up: I just wanted to echo the desire to maintain scores from year to year.
2300: I have concerns with the latest hiring process and the poor communication and treatment of the applicant. They were told they were going to get offers before the holiday weekend. There was no communication to the applicants over the holiday weekend. Finally on Tuesday afternoon some were notified that they moved on and were expected to be at orientation the following Tuesday. They weren’t even given 2 weeks to give notices to their current employer. There was a lot of frustration from this applicant pool.
CHQ: I will follow up on it. It shouldn’t have happened.
2200: With the most recent weekend MRT deployment, how long until that becomes the usual weekend plan?
CHQ: I don’t know. What we did last weekend isn’t sustainable.
2100: When we schedule those HEAT shifts around the state could the captain flex those shifts in the district to allow a Trooper to have a lunch?
CHQ: I would have that conversation at the district level.
2100: I don’t want to beat a dead horse over the previous crash incident we talked about in April, would the new criteria in the forthcoming policy changes be used to evaluate that incident?
CHQ: There’s always going to be cases that we don’t agree on things. The forthcoming change is about listening to things we’ve heard about over the years, but it’s movement to categorize incidents more accurately.
President follow-up: Has a decision been made to keep that crash classified the way it was?
CHQ: Yes.
2000: The executive protection team, what is considered their job duties since they are not road troopers?
CHQ: We will bring this up at the next meeting with 4600.
North: No questions
South: Have you considered residency consistency for outstate and metro troopers by increasing it to 15 miles, making it the same for everyone?
CHQ: I’m not interested in changing anything right now. There’s always going to be a line, and there will always be a reason for needing to be just outside of that line.
South: The digital cameras that we are turning in, do we have an option to buy them back?
CHQ: Only at state auction
South: We’ve heard that the texting ability is turned off on the new state smart phones is this true?
CHQ: As a rule, the only reason we are deploying smartphones is because we have the ability to have texting turned off. If there is a job duty that requires it for the job role, it is enabled. This decision comes from a data perspective. Everything you text is public data, and we don’t want to generate or have to provide this data.
2300 follow-up: I think the last directive during an MRT deployment was not to use our personal device for coordinating movements, couldn’t this help situations such as that?
CHQ: Supervisors have the ability to text as well. This is for the good of the organization, it will benefit us.
South: We have a lot of proud veterans out there that want to maintain their tattoos, would we look at changing this?
CHQ: I’m comfortable with our tattoo policy.
North: How many Troopers are we at right now?
CHQ: Around 614 uniformed members (this includes supervisors). I’d love to see us at around 700. We have the money to get us very close to 700.
North: A trooper brought up a concern regarding how the Ramsey County Sheriff had a very strong opinion against the low bail being set for the person that shot at the trooper in the east metro. Can you tell us why we didn’t see anything similar from you?
CHQ: Sheriff’s don’t have to be accountable in their press releases or get them approved by anyone. It’s also different for a Sheriff to take on a sitting judge. The voters then decide every 4 years if the Sheriff is doing a good job for the county. I was upset with the low bail amount being set as well. I hope that people read between the lines that it’s a totally different job when making public statements.
North: It would be nice to see supervisors as leaders in a district as we’ve had in the past, including the discipline process. It seems like every little thing now gets escalated to internal affair investigations.
CHQ: Most of it is handled at the district level. The cases that we have up in IA are rightfully there to preserve the integrity of the investigation. I’m comfortable that the stuff in IA is the right stuff there.
Secretary: Has there been any additional discussion on the fate of the classic car events? Jay Sletten has retired.
CHQ: Whatever we do it will be a joint venture since the MSPTA owns 2 of the cars and the state owns 1. I’ve got a good idea how we could do it, but we need to discuss it.
Treasurer: No questions
Vice-President: Is there any potential changes or updates to the COVID procedures currently in place?
CHQ: Not that we’re aware of right now. It’s almost like it has been forgotten.
Vice-President follow-up: It’s not something that has been forgotten for those of us that work in an office that must do it every day to come to work.
Vice-President: I have noticed on occasion that messages that come from CHQ get filtered through each district and the meaning or interpretation changes among districts. This happened with the HEAT messaging where districts were wildly different from each other, even though one message came out from CHQ. The latest very minor example is the expense report messaging. I would like to see some of those pieces of information that should be the same across the state come out directly from CHQ for consistency.
CHQ: I hear what you are saying. I trust the captains and majors to make good decisions when communication to their districts, but every time you do that you lose some consistency in the messaging.
President: Keep us apprised on what is going on in Minneapolis.
President: We’ve talked a little bit about recruitment today. I think cadets should be paying into the pension, and this would also be greatly beneficial for an incumbent academy, so those cadets don’t lose 3 months of service credits.
CHQ: We could consider it for a lateral academy. I don’t know if there is any way to go about it other than swearing them in as Troopers on day 1.
President: I’m proud of our airwing and what they are doing to track down these people that flee from us. The key here is the follow through and the prosecution of those individuals. Is there any way for us to see or track if these cases are being prosecuted or see the results by county.
CHQ: We did have this discussion recently. It would be labor intensive and require a whole lot of data analysts. A district investigator could take these on with the cases they are aware of, but we really have no control of the process. I’m not interested in trying to track this right now.
President: Do we have any fears that there segments of the population that will spin those HEAT numbers against us? It wasn’t long ago that we were demonizing anything that wasn’t a traffic related stop.
CHQ: There is some risk in it, but I’ll take it on. With the HEAT program I wanted us to focus on speed. In Minneapolis we’ve found it is difficult to work speed enforcement on their congested city streets.
President: I appreciate the effort to keep us out of Minneapolis except in a capacity we already do.
President: Fond Du Lac college graduated 15 candidates the other day. That low number is part of the problem with the lack of people in the college supply chain for applicants.
Presidents Time
We learned about the PORAC LDF (https://poracldf.org) while out at NTC in California. It is a comparable service to our current LDF through MPPOA and offers cost reductions with the same benefits. We have no desire to remove ourselves from MPPOA’s LDF right now, but it is an option on the table for us to look at down the road if costs continue to go up.
Pursuits continue to be a problem for members including up to termination. Be smart. It isn’t worth it.
Do not be running vehicle or driver queries on your MDC for non-business related/non-law enforcement reasons. Your privileges will be permanently revoked with no option for recourse – meaning you are not able to perform your job as a state trooper.
POST Board proposed rule change comment period closed on July 20th.
https://dps.mn.gov/entity/post/Pages/statute-rules.aspx
Discussion of the classic car fleet and the future of it with Jay Sletten retiring. If this is something you would be interested in heading up in the future, contact Secretary Rick Harjes.
National Troopers Coalition: NTC membership dues increased from $3 to $5 per member.
MPPOA: In 2023 there will be one $10 increase and in 2024 there will be an additional $10 increase in membership dues. This is absorbed through being a member of MSPTA.
Treasurer’s report: Treasurer Orpen presented the budget report. Costs have been increasing on legal fees as are the costs in many other line items in our budget (including membership affiliations discussed previously in the minutes). There was an extensive discussion around raising membership dues to cover operating expenses for the association.
Motion to reduce the MSPTA hourly reimbursement rate to Step 4 of the new contract from Step 5. Motion by 2900 Hanson, seconded by 3200 Danielson: CARRIED
Motion to increase MSPTA dues from $25 to $30 per pay period starting on pay period ending on January 3rd, 2023. Motion by South Theel, seconded by North Weinrich: CARRIED
Magazine: Business Manager Baker provided an update to the magazine. Be sure you update your address if you’re not receiving the magazine through the App or the website. Next article is due September 1st for the fall magazine.
Pension/Retirement:
Make sure that military Troopers that have the option to buy back years of service look at that option. It’s $250 (nonrefundable) for the application. If you decide to buy back the years of service based upon their quote, you’ll receive the $250 application fee back. MSRS still is setting up their system and not ready to go yet.
More information is located here – https://www.msrs.state.mn.us/military-service
Make sure that those that served during those periods of conflict apply to get reimbursement from the state.
https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/press-release/2022-05-09/news-release-revenue-reminds-military-service-members-about-valuable-tax
Equipment Committee:
- Smartphones coming at CIST
- Old IBIS units not compatible with the BCA
- Weapon lights coming this fall at CIST
- Ford Hybrids continue to have issues
- AEDs are being replaced this fall
- Guardian Angel was tested
- Fleet orders were cut significantly, expect vehicle mileages to go up
- Whelen Core systems now going out to outstate district new builds
- New vendor for traffic vests. Previous lighted vest is not made anymore.
Legislative Committee:
There was some good stuff for us in the failed legislative session (pension contribution reduction, .5% COLA increase, income tax exemption, and pattern settlement language). We’ll give it a try in the next legislative session again.
Negotiations Committee:
We are still waiting on backpay to be correctly paid and finalized for everyone. It has been very frustrating in the communication and execution of this backpay.
Home Association:
Retired Trooper Day is coming on August 2nd. All delegates are invited to attend.
Grievance
We will do what we can through our attorney on the MRT investigation with the blanket interviews that have been occurring to see if they violate the police officer bill of rights.
New Business:
3200: None
3100: None
2900: I’d like to put it on everyone’s radar that the 100th anniversary is coming in eight years. If we want do to something special like we’ve done in the past, we should start conversations sooner rather than later.
2800: None
2700: None
2600: None
2500: None
2400: None
2300: None
2200: None
2100: None
2000: None
North: None
South: None
V.P.: None
Secretary: None
Treasurer: None
President: None
Motion to adjourn at 1530 hours. Motion by 2900 Cederstrom, seconded by 2300 Larsen: CARRIED
Upcoming Dates:
- Retired Troopers Day – August 2nd, 2022 – St. Cloud, MN
- Fall National Troopers Conference – September 6th-8th, 2022 – Buffalo, NY (LeDoux & Johnson)
- Fall Executive Council Meeting – October 4th, 2022 – Waite Park, MN
- MPPOA Critical Incident Training – October 11th and 12 – Brooklyn Park, MN
- Winter Executive Council Meeting – January 10th & 11th, 2023 – TBD
- Spring Executive Council Meeting – April 4th, 2023 – TBD
- Summer Executive Council Meeting – July 11th, 2023 – TBD
- Retired Trooper Day – August 1st, 2023 – TBD
- Fall Executive Council Meeting – October 3rd, 2023 – TBD
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