NVFC Supported Bill Re-introduced to Increase State Pension Access to Nonprofit Fire Departments

April 1, 2025

Last week Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) reintroduced a bill (H.R. 2382) to amend both the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code to allow paid firefighters in nonprofit fire departments access to a state’s public pension system. The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) strongly supports this legislation.

This bill would especially impact North Carolina, where the state’s General Assembly passed legislation in 1999 which allowed paid firefighters in nonprofit departments to join the Local Government Retirement System (LGERS). This law stood until 2002, when an IRS Opinion Letter and a subsequent Attorney General Opinion advised North Carolina that it may lose the “public agency” aspect of LGERS if they allowed firefighters from nonprofit departments as members.

In North Carolina 74% of the fire departments are nonprofit, and out of those 938 fire departments, 465 have paid personnel, totaling 5,527 individuals. These amendments to the ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code would allow state governments like North Carolina to acknowledge that nonprofit fire departments essentially function as local government agencies, fulfilling the same roles as their municipal counterparts.