March 2, 2023 - Executive Director Update: Legislative Session, Week 8

The 94th General Assembly - Joint Public Retirement & Social Security Committee

The Joint Retirement Committee (JRC) met on Monday, February 27th. Senator Jimmy Hickey Jr. and Amy Fecher presented some bills for the Public Employee Retirement System. 

The JRC meeting has been canceled for next week. The next JRC meeting will be held on Monday, March 13, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. in Room A of the MAC Building. 

The bills in the ATRS Legislative Package do NOT reduce any benefits for any ATRS member or beneficiary. Visit the Legislation page on the ATRS website for a summary.

Status of ATRS Package Bills

HB1186 and HB1187 were passed out of the Senate this week. It is on the Governor’s desk to sign. Thank you to Senator Kim Hammer for presenting these bills on the Senate floor this week. Thank you to Representative Andrew Collins for presenting these bills on the House floor.

SB117 was passed out of the House this week. It is on the Governor’s desk to sign. Thank you to Representative Les Warren for presenting this bill on the House floor this week. Thank you to Senator Kim Hammer for presenting this bill on the Senate floor.

HB1307 - Concerning Environmental, Social Justice, or Governance (ESG) scored investments

This bill directs the creation of a list of financial service providers that use non-financial factors such as environmental, social justice, or governance (ESG) to discriminate against some Arkansas industries such as those based on fossil fuels, firearms, and ammunition. Once a financial service provider is on this list, Arkansas public entities may have to divest any holdings they might have with them. I understand that Arkansas should send a political message to financial service providers that it is unacceptable to discriminate against certain industries that are important to the Arkansas economy. I personally agree that financial service providers should not be allowed to refuse services based purely on political ideology. These financial service providers should be making their decisions based solely on financial factors. However, this bill may come at a cost to the Teacher Retirement System through the risk of realized losses from divestment mandates and potentially higher fees due to the lack of access to competitive financial services. 

The Arkansas retirement systems have been working with the bill sponsors for the past weeks to get the bill amended to reduce the fiscal impact on the retirement systems. For instance, the bill sponsors narrowed the scope of the bill to only apply to directly held investments of the retirement systems. This change was designed to minimize the expected financial impact. The potential impact on direct investments remains a consideration. While I am appreciative of the sponsors for the amendment designed to minimize the impact of the bill for retirement systems, I have the duty to continue to point out that some aspects of this bill could still impact ATRS. 

Reminders

As a reminder, the Joint Retirement Committee (JRC) meeting will be video streamed over the Internet each Monday morning during the session. Just visit the Arkansas Legislative Meetings and Events web page on Monday at 9:00 a.m. Look for the item “PUBLIC RETIREMENT & SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAMS-JOINT” and click on the “VIDEO” icon. The agenda for the meeting will be posted here at least 18 hours before the start of the meeting.

ATRS will try to keep its members informed about the bills that impact ATRS, its members and employers. For more information regarding the ATRS Bill Package and Bills that may impact ATRS visit the Legislation page on our website.

Stay in Touch with ATRS and View YOUR Account Information

The ATRS website allows members to have direct access to their account information and sign up to receive our executive director updates. Member account information can be accessed 24-hours a day, 7-days a week. Executive director updates are emailed periodically throughout the year to help keep members up-to-date on issues from retirement, to legislative updates that may affect ATRS, and any other time when information needs to be shared.

Join over 30,000 ATRS members who have registered for account access and updates by visiting us at: www.artrs.gov/registration. There you can join the mailing list for executive director updates and register to gain access to your member information.

ATRS is always striving to keep its members, employers, beneficiaries, government officials, and the public informed. It is always a great pleasure for ATRS to learn of more ways to provide information to ATRS members. If you have any suggestions on how we can improve our communication you may e-mail them to info@artrs.gov for consideration.

As always, ATRS and its board are committed to providing a system that is member friendly and transparent. Remember that ATRS is here to serve you.

Best regards,

Clint Rhoden
Executive Director ATRS
Office: 501-588-4367
Mobile: 501-291-1623
clintr@artrs.gov

February 23, 2023 - Executive Director Update: Legislative Session, Week 7

The 94th General Assembly - Joint Public Retirement & Social Security Committee

The Joint Retirement Committee (JRC) met on Monday, February 20th. Senator Kim Hammer, Representative Andrew Collins, and I presented the three bills in the ATRS Legislative Package.

The next JRC meeting will be held on Monday, February 27, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. in Room A of the MAC Building. 

The bills in the ATRS Legislative Package do NOT reduce any benefits for any ATRS member or beneficiary. Visit the Legislation page on the ATRS website for a summary.

Status of ATRS Package Bills

SB117 was passed out of the Senate this week. It is on the House calendar for next week. Thank you to Senator Kim Hammer for presenting this bill on the Senate floor this week.

HB1186 and HB1187 were passed out of the House this week. They are on the Senate calendar for next week. Thank you to Representative Andrew Collins for presenting these bills on the House floor this week.

SB116 has been signed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and is now Act 125. Act 125 will allow a member, that leaves active employment for a period of time and then returns back to employment, to purchase the gap years at actuarial cost. I want to express my appreciation to Senator Kim Hammer for sponsoring this bill.

HB1188 has been signed by Governor Sanders and is now Act 104. Act 104 clarifies some of the language related to the use of partial years in the final average salary and better defines anti-spiking. I want to express my appreciation to Representative Andrew Collins for sponsoring this bill.

HB1201 has been signed by Governor Sanders and is now Act 107. Act 107 makes changes for consistency of language, and other technical changes related to administrative efficiency. I want to express my appreciation to Representative Les Warren for sponsoring this bill.

Now that the deadline for filing bills that directly impact one of the Arkansas public retirement plans has passed, ATRS is monitoring other bills as they are filed to determine if there could be an indirect impact to ATRS. As these bills are identified, we will add them to the ATRS Legislation page on the website. These bills will start in the “ATRS Monitoring” status. As more information is gathered about the purpose, intent, or actuarial cost of the bills, the status could change to “ATRS Neutral”, “ATRS Supports” or “ATRS Opposes”.

As a reminder, the Joint Retirement Committee (JRC) meeting will be video streamed over the Internet each Monday morning during the session. Just visit the Arkansas Legislative Meetings and Events web page on Monday at 9:00 a.m. Look for the item “PUBLIC RETIREMENT & SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAMS-JOINT” and click on the “VIDEO” icon. The agenda for the meeting will be posted here at least 18 hours before the start of the meeting.

ATRS will try to keep its members informed about the bills that impact ATRS, its members and employers. For more information regarding the ATRS Bill Package and Bills that may impact ATRS visit the Legislation page on our website.

Stay in Touch with ATRS and View YOUR Account Information

The ATRS website allows members to have direct access to their account information and sign up to receive our executive director updates. Member account information can be accessed 24-hours a day, 7-days a week. Executive director updates are emailed periodically throughout the year to help keep members up-to-date on issues from retirement, to legislative updates that may affect ATRS, and any other time when information needs to be shared.

Join over 30,000 ATRS members who have registered for account access and updates by visiting us at: www.artrs.gov/registration. There you can join the mailing list for executive director updates and register to gain access to your member information.

ATRS is always striving to keep its members, employers, beneficiaries, government officials, and the public informed. It is always a great pleasure for ATRS to learn of more ways to provide information to ATRS members. If you have any suggestions on how we can improve our communication you may e-mail them to info@artrs.gov for consideration.

As always, ATRS and its board are committed to providing a system that is member friendly and transparent. Remember that ATRS is here to serve you.

Best regards,

Clint Rhoden
Executive Director ATRS
Office: 501-588-4367
Mobile: 501-291-1623
clintr@artrs.gov