AB 28

Under current law, participants under the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) whose principal duties involve active law enforcement or fire suppression or prevention and require frequent exposure to a high degree of danger or peril and a high degree of physical conditioning are classified as protective occupation participants. Current law classifies police officers, fire fighters, and various other individuals as protective occupation participants. Under the WRS, the normal retirement age of a protective occupation participant is lower than that of other participants and the percentage multiplier used to calculate retirement annuities is higher for protective occupation participants.

This bill classifies county jailers as protective occupation participants without a requirement that their principal duties involve active law enforcement or active fire suppression or prevention. The bill defines county jailers as persons employed by a county whose principal duties involve supervising, controlling, or maintaining a jail or persons confined in a jail, regardless of whether the jailers have been sworn regarding their duties or whether they serve on a full-time basis.

Under the bill, county jailers who become protective occupation participants on or after the bill’s effective date and are employed by a county that did not classify county jailers as protective occupation participants on July 1, 2022, are required to pay all additional employer costs resulting from their classification as protective occupation participants, including the cost of the duty disability program. County jailers who were classified as protective occupation participants before the bill’s effective date and county jailers hired on or after the bill’s effective date in counties that did classify county jailers as protective occupation participants on July 1, 2022, are not required to pay the additional employer costs. The bill also allows a county jailer to elect at the time of hire not to become a protective occupation participant.

Finally, under the Municipal Employment Relations Act, public safety employees may collectively bargain over wages, hours, and conditions of employment, and general employees may bargain collectively over only an annual percentage wage increase that does not exceed the annual percentage increase in the consumer price index. Under MERA, public safety employees and general employees may not be in the same collective bargaining unit. The bill amends MERA so that a county that treats a county jailer as a public safety employee on the effective date of this bill shall continue to treat any person it employs as a county jailer as a public safety employee except that, if the county subsequently raises a question regarding the appropriateness of including county jailers in a collective bargaining unit containing public safety employees, no person the county employs as a county jailer may be treated as a public safety employee.

Because this bill relates to public employee retirement or pensions, it may be referred to the Joint Survey Committee on Retirement Systems for a report to be printed as an appendix to the bill.