Executive Director Update: Annual Statements Coming Soon

Later this week, ATRS will begin mailing 2024 Annual Statements to our Active members and Vested Inactive members. If you are not retired and not in T-DROP, and you earned service credit in the 2023-2024 school year by working for one of our covered employers, you should receive a 2024 Annual Statement in the mail.

Because we have more than 80,000 Statements to send, we will be mailing them in batches over the next several weeks. So, it may be late October before you receive your Statement.

This year’s Annual Statement will look a little different because we have redesigned it to be easier to read and understand. It will be printed in a larger typeface, so if you’re like me and rely on bifocals, you won’t be squinting as much. The new Statement is still one sheet of paper, but there will be information printed on both front and back.

The reason we send a Statement each year is so that you can verify that we correctly recorded all of your wages and service credit for the last school year. It is critically important that you let us know if your Statement does not show your correct service credit and wages.

Every year, we hear from members who are ready to retire, but they have discovered that some of their service was not reported to ATRS. Sometimes these problems can be fixed, but the longer you wait, the more troublesome it can be. When this happens, it can mean a delay before you can retire while we work to resolve the issue. And it can sometimes even result in a reduced retirement benefit. By reviewing your Statement, you can be assured that we have your correct wages and service credit for this most recent school year.

Your Statement will have a section with a heading that begins, “Service Recorded for Fiscal Year Ending.” There you will find the wages and service credit that your employer reported to ATRS for the last year that you worked for that employer. And on the back page, you will find up to 30 years of your ATRS credited service, with the most recent service listed first. Please carefully review the information on both sides of the page. If anything looks to be wrong or missing, please call us at (501) 682-1517 or email us at info@artrs.gov.

A few other things to keep in mind about your Annual Statement:

Video Help: We have produced a video walk-through to help you understand your Annual Statement. When you receive your Statement, use your smartphone to scan the QR code at the top right of the Statement and it will take you to the video.

Beneficiaries: The Statement will list your designated beneficiaries for the lump-sum death benefit as well as for your account residue (residue means any accumulated member contributions remaining at your death that have not been used to pay your retirement benefits). If you need to designate or change a beneficiary, you can do so through the member portal on our website.

To access and log in to the portal, go to this link:

https://www.artrs.gov/login

Or, if you don’t have a portal account yet, you can register for one at this link:

https://www.artrs.gov/registration

Once you are in the member portal, look to the left and click on “Member Portal” and then “Member Data” and you will see the button to designate or change a beneficiary.

Milestones: At the bottom of the first page of your Statement you will see a list of membership milestones. This is a quick indication of the benefits you are eligible for as of June 30, 2024, based on your status and how much credited service you have earned with ATRS.

Timing: You should expect to receive your Annual Statement by the end of October. If you have not received your Statement by November 1, please call us at (501) 682-1517 or email us at info@artrs.gov.

And remember, if you are a retired ATRS member, you will not receive an Annual Statement this fall. Instead, you will receive a Form 1099 early next year showing your benefits received during 2024.

As always, if you ever have a question about your retirement options or need information or advice, please reach out to our counselors by calling (501) 682-1517 or e-mailing info@artrs.gov. And if you have any concerns or questions about the System as a whole, please contact me at the email address or phone numbers below.

Mark White
Executive Director, ATRS
MarkW@artrs.gov
Office: (501) 621-8853
Cell: (501) 541-2057

Executive Director Update: Back to School for ATRS Members

“Back to School” season is in full swing. All across our state, tens of thousands of ATRS members are returning to their classrooms, buses, cafeterias, and offices to begin another year of serving our state’s families.

Hundreds more are getting ready to face students for the first time as new teachers and new school employees. They will join the ranks of ATRS members, with the potential to earn their way to a secure retirement. Please join me in welcoming these new members to ATRS and to the world of public education.

I want every one of these new teachers and school employees to understand the tremendous financial value of staying in public education and remaining a member of ATRS. When you see them, I hope that you will tell them about ATRS and the benefits you have gained from our system.

They need to understand that within just a few years, they can earn the right to a lifetime retirement benefit that they cannot lose. Once an ATRS member has at least five years of credited service in the system, they will be “vested” – that means they have earned the right to a pension benefit from ATRS when they retire. The more years of credited service they earn in our system, the greater their benefit will be.

Every new member needs to understand that the ATRS pension benefit brings four key advantages:

Guaranteed for Life: ATRS members never have to worry about outliving their pension benefit. Even when our members reach the age of 100 or older, they continue to receive their monthly benefit from ATRS. And annual cost-of-living adjustments help maintain their purchasing power over time.

Biggest Piece of the Retirement Puzzle: Once an ATRS member completes 28 years of contributory credited service, they are eligible for a monthly pension that is 60% of their final average salary. When you combine that with Social Security benefits, most members can expect monthly income close to what they made when they were working, if not more. And for every additional year that a member continues to work, their monthly benefit will be even larger.

A Safe, Worry-Free Investment: When your retirement is dependent on how your own personal investments perform, market downturns like the one earlier this month can be terrifying. That’s not a worry for ATRS members. Because our system is designed to serve for years to come, the effects of market downturns are spread across generations. And that means our members’ monthly benefits are protected even when the stock market goes down.  

For example: back in 2022, the S&P 500 dropped by nearly 20%, which meant thousands of Americans could no longer afford to retire that year. But for ATRS, the impact of that downturn was spread over many years and had zero impact on our members’ benefits.

Not Just Retirement: As a vested member of ATRS, you are entitled to more than just a monthly benefit in retirement. When an active vested member is unable to work due to a disability, they may be entitled to apply for disability retirement benefits. If an active vested member passes away, their family may be able to receive survivor benefits, as well as a lump-sum death benefit for members with 10 years of actual credited service. And if a member with 28 years of credited service decides to keep working, the T-DROP program allows them to build up a cash nest egg that can be substantial.

If you know someone who is a new teacher or a new school employee, I encourage you to talk to them about ATRS. You can even forward this email to them. And if you are a new employee yourself, please check out our website to learn more about what ATRS offers.

 

Updating Beneficiary Information

Speaking of survivor benefits and the lump-sum death benefit, it is critically important that ATRS members keep their beneficiary information updated. If something happens to you, and we don’t have correct and current information on file about your beneficiaries, it can create a headache and hassle for your family.

If you have an account on our Member Portal on the website, just log in there, select “Member Portal,” and then select “Member Data.” You’ll be able to see what information we have on file for your beneficiaries. And if a change is needed, you can click on “Change Beneficiaries” to submit that change to us.

If you don’t have an account on the Member Portal, you can set one up here, or you can call or send us an email to check on your beneficiary information.

Please make sure that the information we have on your beneficiaries is correct. And if anything changes, please let us know at once so that we can update your information.

 

As always, if you ever have a question about your retirement options or need information or advice, please reach out to our counselors by calling (501) 682-1517 or emailing info@artrs.gov. And if you have any concerns or questions about the System as a whole, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Mark White
Executive Director, ATRS
MarkW@artrs.gov
Office: (501) 621-8853
Cell: (501) 541-2057