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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

January 27, 2017 - Executive Director Update: ATRS Legislative Package and Week 3 of the General Assembly

The week of the retirement bill filing deadline is the first frantically paced week of a general session of the legislature. As of the filing deadline for retirement bills, the 20 ATRS package bills were filed and two (2) ATRS sponsored shell bills were filed. A total of 93 retirement bills were filed by the deadline. Several of the bills were for other retirement systems. Of the non-ATRS package bills that involve ATRS, 4 were substantive bills that would impact ATRS, 6 shell bills were ATRS specific shell bills that could be amended at any time to impact ATRS, and 5 were generic retirement bills that could be amended to potentially impact ATRS. This update has 2 attachments. The first attachment is a Session Update with some analysis. The second attachment is a Bill Summary that lists all the retirement bills and summarizes the 20 ATRS legislative package bills plus all the additional bills that impact ATRS.

Without legislative sponsors of the ATRS package proposed by the ATRS Board, ATRS could not have a legislative package. Sponsoring legislation is time consuming and often difficult. Retirement bills are among the most difficult bills every session. ATRS is grateful and appreciative for the members of the General Assembly that reviewed the ATRS package bills and agreed to sponsor bills in the 20 bill package. A special thank you goes to the sponsors. Senator Bart Hester is sponsoring four (4) of the 20 bills in the ATRS package, Representative Gary Deffenbaugh is sponsoring two (2) bills, Senator John Cooper is sponsoring two (2) of the bills, Representative Johnny Rye is sponsoring two (2) bills, Senator Eddie Cheatham is sponsoring three (3) bills, Representative John Maddox is sponsoring two (2) bills, Senator Bill Sample is sponsoring two (2) bills, Representative Bruce Coleman is sponsoring a package bill, Senator Jeremy Hutchinson is sponsoring a package bill, and Senator Ronald Caldwell is sponsoring a package bill.

From this point forward, as you read these weekly executive director updates and do not have time to read the entire update, you may want to open the attachments and look for any part of the update that is written in red. You may find red wording on both the Session Update attachment 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. This update is about 40 pages 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.

At this time, four (4) additional bills have been filed (not part of the ATRS package) with substantive language that would change laws affecting ATRS and its members. Numerous shell bills have been filed that could become substantive within a day. If a major concern arrives during the week, ATRS may send out a special executive director update at any time to inform members and employers about a major issue of concern.

Remember that ATRS has a new website that allows members to have direct access to specific member account information. Now approximately 9,400 members have direct account access to individualized account information. Here is the link to the instructions to sign up: https://www.artrs.gov/general/director-updates/716-08-15-2014-executive-director-update-the-new-atrs-website.

In addition, over 14,000 people have access to the ATRS executive director updates via direct email delivery. 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.