Committee: Legislative 

2026 Mission: 
The mission of the Legislative Committee is to provide focus, representation, and visibility for the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association (MSFCA) in legislative activities. This is done by advocating, supporting, sponsoring, opposing, and actively participating in the legislative process involving those issues, areas, or proposals as directed by the President of the Association.

2026 Report:  

The 2026 Minnesota legislative session concluded in May, with legislators passing a number of new laws with implications for the fire service. These changes are highlighted below. We continued to partner with our lobbying firm, Lockridge Grindal Nauen (LGN), this session, with outstanding results from their team. Having representation at the Capitol is crucial for MNFAC’s priorities. 

The Minnesota Fire Association Coalition (MNFAC) has an alliance with the Minnesota State Fire Department Association (MSFDA), Minnesota Fire Marshals Association (FMAM), and the Minnesota Chapter of the International Arson Investigators Association (IAAI). This partnership remains united on our legislative agenda and advocates for the Minnesota Fire Service at the Capitol. MNFAC representatives meet bi-weekly throughout the legislative session to address issues and discuss legislative strategy. Although we do not represent the Minnesota Professional Firefighters, we work closely with them on several legislative issues and Fire Service Day at the Capitol.

 LGN and MNFAC made substantial progress on our legislative priorities. We maintained a strong presence at the Capitol, continuing to build strong relationships with legislators and staff, the Governor’s office, and agency heads. We welcomed many of you to the Capitol on April 27th for our annual Fire Service Day at the Capitol. Thank you to those of you who were able to join us. We hope to see you all again next year on Monday, March 29th, 2027. 

In the second year of the biennium in a closely divided legislature, it was unclear how much could be accomplished. The Minnesota House is tied with 67 Republicans and 67 Democrats, and the Senate Democrats have a one-seat majority. Last year, the legislature passed a two-year budget, so no legislation was required to pass this session. However, they were able to pass a number of omnibus bills across many subject areas: most notably to MNFAC, the legislature passed the public safety and the pensions and retirement omnibus bills. 

LGN and MNFAC had tremendous success at the Capitol this session, passing one of our top priorities:expanding line of duty death survivorship benefits. We successfully expanded these benefits to clarify application to all firefighters in Minnesota and expand the circumstances that constitute a line of duty death. The new law adds part-time and paid on-call firefighters to the definition of a public safety officer eligible for line of duty death benefits. Previously, statute only included volunteer and full-time firefighters. These changes were passed in the omnibus public safety bill and apply retroactively to February 1, 2020. 

The Legislature also passed an omnibus pensions and retirement bill with several provisions of interest to the fire service. The bill reduces the waiting period for a PERA P&F retiree or benefit recipient to receive a full postretirement adjustment (COLA) from 24 to 12 months, and reduces the waiting period for a partial COLA from 13 months to 1 month. The new law also makes changes to the procedures a fire relief association must follow to terminate its retirement plan, removing the requirement of using “present value” when calculating benefits and surplus allocations. 

LGN and MNFAC spent significant effort to defeat numerous legislative proposals that would be harmful to the fire service. Once again, we successfully defeated a proposal to expand sing-way-out stairways to multifamily residential structures above three stories. Despite MNFAC’s involvement in a working group study on this topic, the proposal continues to raise severe safety concerns, and we continue to strongly oppose it. We also defeated an attempt to change the vesting schedule and membership for fire relief associations, which would have had broad sweeping impacts to the fire service across the state. Finally, we also defeated an attempt to expand the use of legal fireworks in Minnesota. 

This summer, MNFAC and LGN are monitoring three work groups formed by the 2026 legislature. The first, the Fire Relief Association Working Group, is tasked with making recommendations to the legislature to shorten the vesting schedule for fire relief associations, incorporate emergency medical providers into fire relief associations, and apply the same changes to the PERA Statewide Volunteer Firefighter Plan. Next, the Duty Disability Working Group is required to recommend legislation that would reform duty disability for members of the PERA P&F plan and ensure that members of the police and fire plan who become duty disabled have access to affordable health insurance coverage until Medicare eligibility. Finally, the ARMER working group is directed to identify a statewide funding solution for public safety radio communications infrastructure, making recommendations for transitioning the Allied Radio Matrix for Emergency Response (ARMER) network to a statewide program with state funding. LGN and MNFAC secured MSFCA representation on each of these three working groups and are following them closely over the interim. 

This session, our LGN team also monitored issues relating to assisted living facility licensing changes and operating requirements, battery disposal, standardizing first responder IDs, and decommissioning fire department vehicles, among others. Of these, only changes to assisted living facilities passed into law. We continue to set ourselves up for success during the interim and are prepared to continue making progress on our priorities during the 2027 session. 

In addition to working with our LGN team, MNFAC partners with Taft Advisors to prioritize EMS reporting legislation. This session, although the EMS accountability provisions were not enacted, we made progress building legislative champions of this priority and continuing to have positive conversations with key legislators. We also continue to participate in the EMS Delivery and Sustainability Task Force (MEDS), discussing innovations and funding issues. 

Legislative Committee File Library

Legislative Bill Tracker File Library

EMS Transcripts File Library

Public Legislative Resources

Town Hall Presentation from Representative Rasmusson