Mississippi First Responders, a group representing police officers, sheriffs, and firefighters, among others, is looking to ensure that a new retirement benefit structure created by the legislature in 2025 will not apply to those who put their lives on the line each day to serve their local communities.
In the most recent legislative session, Gov. Tate Reeves signed House Bill 1 into law. While the bill’s ultimate goal was to phase out the state’s income tax, the legislation also modified Mississippi’s public employees’ retirement system (PERS), creating a new tier to improve the system’s financial stability. As things stand, PERS is estimated to have an unfunded liability of roughly $26 billion.
The new tier, also known as Tier 5, applies to all public employees hired after March 1, 2026, and increases service from 30 to 35 years, removes guaranteed cost-of-living adjustments, reduces the pension multiplier from 2% to 1%, and raises the retirement age from 60 to 62, among other functions, before one can draw state benefits.
While on the surface, this may appear to be a proactive way to protect the retirement plans for current and future government employees, first responders are sounding the alarm that the implementation could have unintended consequences such as a mass exodus of police officers, firefighters, and others exiting government work, while their positions go unfilled due to existing struggles in attracting new talent.
First responders, according to several studies, live shorter lives than the civilians they serve. They also experience higher rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, PTSD, and suicide than the general workforce. Because of this, Oxford Police Chief Jeff McCutchen contends that extending the amount of time a first responder has to work in his or her field before being able to draw retirement benefits is preposterous.
“If we hire you at 21, you can’t even retire until you hit that 35-year mark. Who’s going to be able to do this job at that age? It makes no sense. At 56, we’re going to talk about retiring you? The life expectancy for a first responder in America is somewhere between 57 and 66,” McCutchen said on Mornings with Richard Cross. “You’ve served in this profession your whole life, and within 10 years, you’re gone after retirement. I think that’s unacceptable.”
With recruitment numbers already dwindling, leaders in various police, fire, and sheriff’s departments are worried that elevating the retirement age would make hiring new talent a daunting task. Reservoir Fire Chief Josh Swales pointed to the mission firefighters face each day, which requires a level of physical strength that individuals naturally lose as they age. That, paired with a lack of desk jobs for older members of the force, would not entice somebody to jump aboard with no retirement guarantees.
“There are only so many admin jobs that I believe you could truly do 35 years in. These guys ride in the fire truck every day, wearing the heavy gear that they wear, wearing 50 to 60 pounds of gear, being asked to carry 50 to 100 pounds or more of equipment on an emergency scene,” Swales said. “It gets tougher the older you get. If we don’t have something we can offer those guys as they age, such as an admin spot, they’re going to get to the point where they’re too old to do the job.”
“If you look at the national average of first responders, they generally work 25 to 30 years. That’s the career span of a firefighter. I think that going to 35 years is going to significantly hurt the recruitment side of our profession,” he continued. “The pay wasn’t that great. It’s still low. According to the national average, we’re still lower than other states. But one of the benefits that we could sell you on was that you had a 25-year retirement [plan]. You could take half of that salary at the end of your 25 years. You could move on and start another career.”
Hoping to ditch some of the current language of the tax bill, first responders are proposing to be eligible for retirement after 25 years of qualified service. Additionally, the proposal includes first responders having the ability to retire under the PERS system, draw their retirement benefits, and return to work under the First Responder Retirement Program to build toward a second retirement.
First responders would also like to see their contribution percentages and employee contribution rates match Tier 4 levels, while earning cost-of-living benefits that are tied to the consumer price index, which is on par with Social Security’s model, along with other perks not included in House Bill 1.
If changes are not made, both McCutchen and Swales fear that first responders in Mississippi will move to neighboring states with more generous retirement plans. For instance, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana have retirement plans for first responders that mandate under 30 years of service.
The 2026 legislative session will begin on Jan. 6. The alliance representing first responders has held multiple conversations with various lawmakers and is hopeful that the talks will produce a modification to the retirement system.
In the meantime, the House of Representatives has already held a series of committee meetings to see how lawmakers could assist first responders with their retirement plans, while also tackling the unfunded liability within PERS. Both the House and Senate are expected to introduce proposals early in the session and further discuss a path forward from there.
“I think, at the end of the day, they’re going to listen to us. I believe they’re going to put some thought into it. I know these legislators have a really, really tough decision to make to shore up this PERS program. I totally understand that,” Swales said. “But I know that, in the past, they’ve always really cared about the first responders. … I really feel like they’re going to listen to us and do anything that they can to be able to help us out.”
Current first responders are grandfathered into the retirement plan in place before House Bill 1 was signed into law. However, inaction is feared to be a slippery slope that could lead to under-patrolled streets and Mississippi neighborhoods that are not nearly as safe as they could be.