Executive Director Update: Doing More With Less, and Planning for the Future

Public school educators know more than just about anyone what it means to do more with less. To be resourceful and creative in getting things done with minimal resources.

From finding materials to be donated, to reusing and recycling supplies, to buying things out of their own pockets, our teachers and school employees do whatever it takes to educate our children.

At ATRS, we have long operated under that exact mindset. We run a lean, efficient operation that uses the minimum amount of resources, so that we preserve as much of our assets as possible for member benefits. Everything we do is funded entirely by our own operations, we don’t receive a dime of general revenue funding from the state.

You might be surprised how our operations stack up to other financial institutions. Today, ATRS manages an investment portfolio of more than $25 billion for more than 140,000 members. To put that in perspective, two major, household-name financial institutions here in Arkansas – Simmons Bank and Stephens, Inc. – both manage roughly the same amount of assets as ATRS.

But there is a massive difference in how we run our operations.

To manage their corporate footprints, commercial lending, and retail branches, an institution like Simmons Bank utilizes more than 2,700 employees. A national money manager like Stephens employs more than 1,300 people.

Your retirement system? The Arkansas Legislature allows ATRS only 87 positions. And as of July 1, we are operating with an internal administrative staff of just 73 full-time employees.

With 73 of us serving 67,871 active educators and public school employees, our system operates at a ratio of one internal staff member for every 930 active members. Across the country, mid-sized public pension systems typically operate with larger teams, averaging one employee for every 500 to 1,000 members.

How do we do it? ATRS has a highly dedicated, cross-trained internal staff who routinely wear multiple hats to get the job done. We adapt and adjust and prioritize to ensure the most critical things get done.

Operating this lean is a badge of honor, but frankly it also creates risk. With such a small staff, losing even one person can create bottlenecks and backlogs for entire work units. When a team is this small, there is no margin for error.

As a state government agency, we are faced with many obstacles and hurdles that keep us from hiring new employees and filling vacant positions. Our current pace is a testament to the grit of our 73 staff members. But it is not a sustainable way to guarantee the level of customer service and modern cybersecurity protection you deserve. That is why we will be asking the Legislature to create a few new positions and seeking more flexibility in filling the ones we already have.

We have proven we can do more with less. Now, it’s time to ensure we can continue doing it right.

Even with these changes, ATRS will remain a lean, fiscally conservative retirement system, a system committed to providing retirement security for Arkansas’s past, present, and future public education professionals.

You have spent your career working hard for our state's future. My promise to you is that our team will keep working just as hard to secure yours—responsibly, efficiently, and safely.

Cost of Living Adjustment

July means an increase in your retirement benefit, thanks to the 3% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). Every year, effective July 1, ATRS provides a 3% COLA for members who have been retired for at least 12 months. The 3% increase is what is known as a “simple” increase, because it is calculated as 3% of your base amount – your original retirement benefit calculation when you first retired.

You will see the increased benefit amount in your check for July, which should go out July 15. After you receive your July payment, if anything appears to be off, please let us know.

If you have an issue with your deposit amount, or any other questions about your retirement options, please call us at (501) 682-1517 or email us at info@artrs.gov.

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

Executive Director Update: Supporting Arkansas’s Teachers + Retirement Season Update

A legislative report earlier this month told a familiar story: Arkansas public school employees are still being asked to do more with less, but they continue to hold our schools together, and ATRS is a big reason why. That’s the story told by two key findings presented to the Senate and House Interim Committees on Education.

First, when you adjust for inflation, the average teacher salary for Arkansas public school districts is dropping – it’s nearly 8% lower than a decade ago. If it weren’t for the significant pay increases in the LEARNS Act, the drop over the last decade would have been worse, closer to 12%. I’m thankful that many of our members saw pay increases under the LEARNS Act, but this is a stark reminder that long-term pay trends in our public schools are not keeping up with the rising cost of living.

Second, a survey of teachers shows that the #1 reason they stay in public education is retirement. Not pay, not schedule, but the retirement security they have in ATRS. This underscores just how important our work is at ATRS. Our job is to ensure retirement security for Arkansas’s past, present, and future public education professionals. When we do our job well, the retirement security we provide helps ensure that qualified, experienced professionals continue to serve our state’s children in public education.

The report did show that some things are working and going well. For example, teacher retention rates are improving, and many educators reported feeling supported by their school leadership. In fact, just as retirement is the #1 reason reported by teachers for staying in the classroom, the #2 reason is their school’s leadership. Overall, 89% of teachers surveyed either somewhat agreed or strongly agreed that they were “generally satisfied with being a teacher at” their schools.

At the same time, though, stress and workload are taking a toll. The survey shows 30% of teachers are considering leaving the teaching profession, and 23% are interested in transferring schools or districts.

There’s not much that we at ATRS can do to increase pay or reduce workload for our state’s public school employees. But we work every day to reduce the stress of retirement and to ensure that a secure, happy retirement is waiting for these dedicated education professionals when they decide to retire.

On the Legislature’s website you can find links to the study and presentation with this information.

Retirement Season Ends

The deadline has now passed for members to enter T-DROP or retire July 1. We are still processing some forms that came in at the last minute, but as I write this, we have processed 1,438 July 1 retirement applications and 593 T-DROP applications. For comparison, last year we received 1,362 July 1 retirement applications and 681 T-DROP applications. So, the total number of ATRS members making retirement decisions was about the same as last year, but more members decided to fully retire this time rather than enter T-DROP.

I hope that more of our members will consider entering T-DROP next year. It really is a fantastic program, allowing members to begin accruing retirement benefits in a savings account even as they continue working. And members in T-DROP no longer have the 7% member contribution taken out of their paycheck.

Entering T-DROP is an option for ATRS members who are actively working and have at least 28 years of service credit. Those 28 years can include actual ATRS service credit or reciprocal service credit from another system like APERS. If you would like to see some projections for how you might benefit from T-DROP, please give our counselors a call at (501) 682-1517 or email us at info@artrs.gov.

You can find more information on T-DROP on our website here:

https://www.artrs.gov/teacher-deferred-retirement-option-t-drop

ATRS Financial Update

If you haven’t already seen it in the newspaper or on social media, you will be happy to know that our Board of Trustees received another outstanding financial performance report for our investment portfolio. Between July 1, 2025, and April 30, 2026, our investment portfolio has shown a 12.1% return, adding nearly $2 billion to the System’s assets.

For the first time ever, ATRS has exceeded $25 billion in total assets. That makes our System stronger financially and gives us more resilience in case we see a stock market downturn later this year, as some analysts are predicting. We measure our performance by a fiscal year that runs July 1 – June 30, so we are hoping that the stock markets continue their bullish gains as we close out this fiscal year in the next few weeks.

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If you have any questions about your retirement options or need information or advice, please contact one of our experienced retirement counselors by calling (501) 682-1517 or emailing info@artrs.gov. For questions or concerns about the System overall, please feel free to contact me directly at the email address or phone numbers below.

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