February 10, 2017 - Executive Director Update: ATRS Legislative Package and Week 5 of the General Assembly

Week 5 was a "3 steps forward and 2 steps back" week.  ATRS had three (3) bills for consideration by the Joint Retirement Committee on Monday, February 6, 2017.  HB1304 and HB1305 were voted out of the Committee "DO PASS" and SB233 was held in Committee for consideration next week.  On Wednesday, both HB1304 and HB1305 were returned to the Joint Retirement Committee for additional review and clarification.  All three of the bills ready for action are now back in committee.  Concerns arose that HB1304 would impact local property taxes on real property held by ATRS and otherwise could give ATRS an unfair competitive advantage over private owners.  HB1304 does not impact the payment of property taxes by ATRS and was a clarification bill.

ATRS looks forward to better explaining the bill on Monday, February 13, 2017, back in the Joint Retirement Committee.  If you would like to see a very detailed analysis of HB1304 that was sent to the members of the General Assembly on Thursday, February 9, 2017, a copy of the email with attachments that was sent to members of the General Assembly is attached to this update.

ATRS did have several meetings and telephone calls with school officials, members of the General Assembly, ATRS members, and other school advocates to discuss the 20 bill ATRS legislative package.  ATRS is working on amendments to certain bills to reflect agreements and to further clarify language and intent.

ATRS staff met with Representative Tosh on HB1336 and now expects that amendments are underway to remove ATRS concerns about the bill.  This is the bill that originally contained forfeiture of benefit language in the event a retirement system member committed certain crimes.  ATRS thanks Representative Tosh for his assistance and cooperation with ATRS on this bill.

On Monday, ATRS will likely have four (4) package bills on the Joint Retirement Committee agenda, SB193, SB233, HB1304, and HB1305.  In addition, a bill by Representative Tosh addressing the ATRS five (5) year lookback law is also expected to be on the agenda.  ATRS worked with Representative Tosh to find acceptable language and is neutral on this bill.  Monday is stacking up to be a busy day in the Joint Retirement Committee for ATRS.  SB142 is now an official act of the 91^st General Assembly.  SB142 became Act 127 of 2017.  Again, thank you Senator Cooper for sponsoring this bill that ensures the independence of the ATRS Internal Auditor.

Remember the ATRS website allows members to have direct access to specific member account information.  Now approximately 9,500 members have direct account access to individualized account information.  Here is the link to the instructions to sign up: https://www.artrs.gov/welcome.

You can also sign up to obtain these executive director updates through your private email address.  Updates are made throughout the year such as at retirement season and other times when information needs to be shared.  Now, over 14,200 people have signed up to receive this executive director by direct email delivery.  You can find the link to sign up for email delivery to these updates here: https://www.artrs.gov/login.  It is always a great pleasure for ATRS staff to learn of more ways to provide information to ATRS members, employers, beneficiaries, government officials, and the public.  The ATRS Board is committed to providing a system that is member friendly and transparent. 

You can also get helpful ATRS information on the ATRS Facebook page under the name of Arkansas Teacher Retirement System.  Over 3,100 Facebook users get updates via the ATRS Facebook page.  Go to the Facebook page and "like" ATRS to get daily updates.  I try to go to the Facebook page every day to post information and answer member questions about ATRS.  In addition, if you use Twitter, you can join over 800 others by following events at ATRS and issues of interest on the ATRS Twitter page.  Remember that ATRS is here to serve you! If you have questions, email me or call.

Respectfully,

George Hopkins

(501) 682-1820 Office
(501) 318-5998 Cell
georgeh@artrs.gov

 Click on the following document for more information:

1. Session Update

2. Bill Summary

3. HB1304 Analysis

February 3, 2017 - Executive Director Update: ATRS Legislative Package and Week 4 of the General Assembly

It was a typical 4th week of the session for ATRS retirement legislation.  The first ATRS bill to be heard in the Joint Retirement Committee was recommended from the Committee with a "do pass" motion on Monday, January 30, 2017. SB142 has now been approved by both the Senate and House and is now on Governor Hutchinson's desk.  Again, thank you, Senator Cooper, for sponsoring this important legislation of ATRS. On an important note, SB76, the ATRS appropriation bill is now Act 67 of 2017. Thank you Joint Budget Committee and Governor Hutchinson for approving the ATRS appropriation that allows ATRS to pay member benefits and operating expenses. It is one of the earliest acts of the session!

Much of this week's work was behind the scenes working on amendments that some legislators have asked ATRS to consider. ATRS was providing input on bills outside the ATRS legislative package that could impact ATRS. ATRS executive staff was also performing other day to day tasks that a retirement system faces during a legislative session.

On Monday, February 6, 2017, ATRS has three (3) package bills to be heard before the Joint Retirement Committee.  HB1304 by Representative Maddox, HB1305 by Representative Maddox, and SB233 by Senator Caldwell. The main activity ATRS has underway at this time is considering amendments to package bills, monitoring all legislation that could impact ATRS, having lengthy discussions with actuaries about retirement bills, and attending meetings at the Capitol and other places with legislators and groups of members. 

The pace is significantly picking up both visibly and behind the scenes.  From a legislative procedural standpoint, this week remained fairly light on retirement bill activity.  Importantly, no shell bill that could impact ATRS was amended into substantive bills this week.  Typically, this is very good news.

ATRS is now working closely with Representative Dwight Tosh on HB1336 that was discussed in last week's executive director update. Representative Tosh has stated his clear intent to amend the bill to address several of ATRS' objections.  As a recap, the bill as originally drafted would cause a forfeiture of benefits in a retirement system if a felony conviction occurred connected to a member's public employment in any way.  ATRS appreciates Representative Tosh's willingness to work with ATRS and the other retirement systems to make modifications to the forfeiture bill to address some of the concerns that have been expressed.

As you read these weekly executive director updates and do not have time to read the entire update, you may want to look for any part of the update that is written in red. You may find red wording on both the Executive Director Update and on the Bill Summary attachment.  Red wording indicates that ATRS staff believes the information is important to know or of concern.  Due to the nature of having 25-30 substantive bills that affect ATRS and its members in this session's updates, the update will tend to be very long. Each bill will have an explanation and a status update. To the extent your time is limited, the red wording will attempt to highlight what ATRS staff thinks may be of greatest interest or concern for ATRS employers and members to focus upon.  ATRS also understands that some members will be focused on specific bills that may be of major interest but not highlighted. It is understood that the 20 bill package of ATRS is closely watched since it is designed to allow ATRS to react to market changes and new financial standards. 

One ATRS bill, SB142 is on Governor Hutchinson's desk after passage by both the Senate and House. The remaining 19 ATRS package bills have been referred to the Joint Public Retirement Committee for future consideration. Three of those bills are on the Joint Retirement Committee's agenda for Monday. All three have actuarial studies in the form of written reports by the actuaries.  Retirement bills will almost always have a fiscal impact which means the bills must be studied by both the Joint Public Retirement Committee actuary and the ATRS actuary.  These studies often take a few weeks to complete due to the complexity of determining how changes may impact ATRS, its employers and members.

Remember the ATRS website allows members to have direct access to specific member account information. Now approximately 9,500 members have direct account access to individualized account information. Here is the link to the instructions to sign up: https://www.artrs.gov/welcome.

You can also sign up to obtain these executive director updates through your private email address. Updates are made throughout the year such as at retirement season and other times when information needs to be shared. Now, over 14,200 people have signed up to receive this executive director by direct email delivery. You can find the link to sign up for email delivery to these updates here: https://www.artrs.gov/login. It is always a great pleasure for ATRS staff to learn of more ways to provide information to ATRS members, employers, beneficiaries, government officials, and the public. The ATRS Board is committed to providing a system that is member friendly and transparent. 

You can also get helpful ATRS information on the ATRS Facebook page under the name of Arkansas Teacher Retirement System. Over 3,100 Facebook users get updates via the ATRS Facebook page. Go to the Facebook page and "like" ATRS to get daily updates. I try to go to the Facebook page every day to post information and answer member questions about ATRS. In addition, if you use Twitter, you can join over 800 others by following events at ATRS and issues of interest on the ATRS Twitter page. Remember that ATRS is here to serve you! If you have questions, email me or call.

Respectfully,

George Hopkins

(501) 682-1820 Office
(501) 318-5998 Cell
georgeh@artrs.gov

 Click on the following document for more information:

1. Session Update

2. Bill Summary