- Advocacy groups for state first responders say they aren’t asking for a different retirement plan because they think they are better than other state employees, but “they’re asking because the job is different.”
Lawmakers created a new tier in the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS, during the 2025 legislative session in an effort to gradually reduce its $26 billion unfunded liabilities and improve the system’s financial stability.
By moving to the Tier 5 retirement system, lawmakers anticipate that the state will see a reduction in future liabilities and therefore see cost savings to better sustain the system long-term.
However, there is a growing discontent among the first responder community across Mississippi, so much so that their various sheriff, police and fire associations have proposed their own retirement plan.
The groups say first responders are not asking for a different retirement plan because they think they are better than other state employees, but “they’re asking because the job is different.”
“Every day brings danger, trauma, PTSD, and suicide at rates few professions face. Traditional systems don’t fit careers that break bodies and shorten lives,” the first responders’ groups contend.
The groups believe the new Tier 5 will hurt in their recruitment of officers. They push back on critics who say a tailored plan costs too much, asking, “But what is the cost if we fail to protect those who protect us?”
“Without first responders, communities face slower response times, greater loss of life, and the collapse of the very safety net that holds us together,” the first responders said. “The price of action is dollars. The price of inaction is lives.”
The new PERS Tier 5, as passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Tate Reeves, will go into effect March 2026 for all new state employees and will be a hybrid retirement plan. New hires will contribute 9 percent of their earned compensation into the PERS system, with 4 percent of their retirement savings placed in a defined benefit plan and 5 percent going to a defined contribution plan. Retirement eligibility moves to 35 years of service or age 62 and vested. No guaranteed cost-of-living adjustment, or what has become known as the “13th check,” is baked into Tier 5.
The additional tier will not impact those currently in PERS.
The first responders are proposing a specific retirement plan only for local and state law enforcement officers certified under Standards and Training, all full-time firefighters, jailers, dispatchers, and public EMS personnel. Notably, their proposal does not include the Mississippi Highway Patrol, as the groups say MHP operates under a separate retirement system with a significantly higher employer contribution rate.
Under their proposal, a first responder may retire under the PERS system, draw their retirement, and return to work under the First Responder Retirement Program to build toward a second retirement—with no required separation period. Participants would then be eligible for retirement after 25 years of qualified service.
As for employer and employee contribution rates, the first responders’ proposal said those rates would remain the same as current PERS Tier 4 levels. They also want to see a COLA tied to the Consumer Price Index, consistent with the Social Security model.
According to the system’s FY 2024 report, PERS administers 25 programs/plans with a total system membership of 368,333 and investment assets of $33.7 billion and total net assets of $34 billion. The number of retirees in the system is roughly 120,000.
Mississippi has more than 267,226 working and retired state and local government employees. The active membership of PERS comprises 12.1 percent of Mississippi’s workforce.
