The August 6 Fire Relief Association Working Group meeting was canceled. The Working Group members will instead hold their first meeting of the year on Thursday, August 20, from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm. Meeting materials and a link to watch the live stream will be posted on our Working Group webpage.

Topics on the agenda for the August 20 meeting include a consideration of removing references to "present value" when calculating benefits for members of a relief association that converts from a defined benefit to a defined contribution plan, and a discussion of potential changes to the fire state aid program that would allow any reductions to aid due to late reporting to remain in the program instead of reverting to the State's general fund.

In 2021, the Minnesota legislature established the Hometown Heroes Assistance Program and provided funding to the nonprofit MnFIRE to administer the program. The program offers various health and wellness benefits to eligible firefighters.

MnFIRE recently announced that  as of August 1, 2026, Minnesota firefighters who leave or retire from the fire service on or after that date will be eligible to extend their Hometown Heroes Assistance Program benefits.  There are time constraints around enrolling in the Benefit Extension Program, as well as other conditions.

Additional information is available on the MnFIRE website.

The first deadline for fire relief associations to be eligible to receive 2026 fire state aid is on September 15, about a month away. Check out our reporting compliance dashboard to see a relief association’s status in submitting required reports to the OSA and if the relief association has met its requirements with the OSA to be qualified for its fire state aid distribution.

Contact the Pension Team for help with questions about reporting requirements or
completing reporting forms.

Relief associations ineligible to receive 2026 state aid in the first round of state aid payments may be eligible to receive their state aid in the second round of payments if all required reports have been submitted, the OSA review has been completed, and any identified issues are resolved by November 1.

The 2026 fire state aid amounts will be available in mid-September. Lists of the state aid
amounts will be posted on the OSA and Department of Revenue websites when they are
available.

We're conducting a survey to get feedback on the redesigned Schedule Form and FIRE Form that were released earlier this year, and would love to hear your thoughts! The survey should only take a few minutes and asks questions about the ease of completing the forms and helpfulness of the form instructions and training videos.

A new training video is available that walks through the Financial Projections and Required Contribution tabs of the redesigned Schedule (SC) Form for relief associations with a defined benefit lump-sum plan.

Additional instructional videos showing how to complete relief association reporting forms can be found on the Training Opportunities page of our website.

Relief associations have authority to award service credit for pension purposes based on each completed year of active service that a member has served with the affiliated fire department or, if the relief association’s bylaws authorize it, to prorate service credit on a monthly basis.

If a relief association’s bylaws authorize the monthly proration of service credit, the bylaws may define what constitutes a “month.” The bylaw definition must require a calendar month to have at least 16 days of active service. If the bylaws allow service credit to be prorated on a monthly basis but do not define a “month,” a “month” must be a completed month of active service measured from the member’s date of entry to the same date in the subsequent calendar month.

The OSA’s Bylaw Guides include sample language that a relief association may use as a reference if the relief association elects to prorate service credit monthly or to define a “month” of service credit in its bylaws. The Sample Bylaw Guides are provided in both MS Word and Adobe PDF formats.

A Statement of Position is available on the OSA’s website that provides additional information about firefighter service credit determinations.