Securing your Future: The ATRS 2025-2026 Member Handbook

New Year. New Knowledge. Stronger Retirement. The new 2025-2026 Member Handbook is HERE.

 

Executive Director Update: 2026 Payment Schedule + 2025 Financial Update

I have good news to share regarding our System’s financial condition, but first I want to highlight our new payment schedule for 2026. Members have long asked ATRS to move benefit payments to earlier in the month and make payment dates more consistent. Our staff worked hard this last year to clear some obstacles, and I can now announce that all 2026 benefit payments will be made on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.  

For many, that will mean that your ATRS benefit arrives on the same day of the month as your Social Security benefit. It also ensures your ATRS benefit arrives ahead of the holidays in November and December.  

The payment dates for 2026 will be:

January 21	May 20	September 16
February 18	June 17	October 21
March 18	July 15	November 18
April 15	August 19	December 16

You can always find the current payment schedule by going to our website at https://www.artrs.gov/ and clicking on “Calendar.”

 

ATRS Financial Update for 2025

Earlier this month, the ATRS Board of Trustees heard our actuaries' preliminary report for the 2024-2025 school year. Even the actuaries will say that their reports are not exciting reading, but they are a critically important measure of our financial health.  

Retirement systems like ATRS are built on a simple but powerful promise: to provide lifetime benefits to all our members. That promise applies to those already enjoying retirement, as well as to those still working in our schools every day. Keeping that promise takes careful planning. We have to consider a lot of moving parts — like how the economy is doing, how our investments are performing, how changes in school salaries affect contributions, and even how long people are living.  

That’s where our professional actuaries come in. They crunch the numbers, analyze all those factors, and project what it will take to fund retirement benefits for decades to come. Every year, they update those projections to help us stay on track and make adjustments when needed — so we can keep our promise to every member, now and in the future.

There are three key takeaways from this year's report:

First, ATRS earned a 9.8% return on investment for the 2024-2025 year, which was enough to generate more than $2.1 billion of total investment profits. Even after deducting what was used to pay benefits and the returns that are assumed in our actuarial projections, the System still received $563 million more than expected. We ended the year at a total portfolio value of $23.7 billion (and since then we have crossed the $24 billion mark).  

Second, ATRS is 100% funded as to future benefit payments for all of our current retirees. In other words, ATRS has enough assets already on hand to fully pay out monthly benefits for life for every retired member. ATRS has consistently met this goal every year since 1980.  

Third, when we consider the future benefits that will be owed to members who are still working, ATRS is 84.4% funded. In other words, even if ATRS closed up shop and did nothing but send out checks to all of our members for the benefits they’ve already earned, we already have enough funds on hand to pay 84.4% of those benefits.  

This is a good, healthy number. Pension systems are often considered healthy if their funded position is 80% or greater, and if that funded position is stable or improving over time. The reason why it doesn’t have to be 100% is that this is a very conservative estimate. It doesn’t account for the member and employer contributions that ATRS will continue to collect in the coming years. It assumes a conservative investment return, and historically ATRS has earned more than that assumed rate.

What this means is that ATRS is financially strong and prepared to keep the promise of lifetime retirement benefits for all of our members.  

Some other interesting statistics:

• ATRS paid retirement benefits to 57,492 retirees and surviving beneficiaries, totaling nearly $1.5 billion in the 2024-2025 year. That’s about a 4% increase over the prior year. Just last month, ATRS distributed more than $124 million in payments to members.
• The average member retirement benefit was $25,330 annually.  
• Arkansas public schools and other covered employers reported 67,871 employees statewide receiving a total employee payroll of $3.644 billion.  
• We have 1,063 ATRS retirees who are age 90 to 94, and 300 retirees who are 95 and older.

The final actuarial valuation reports will be presented to the ATRS Board in February and then posted to the ATRS website on the Publications page.  

If you would like to know more about the finances and membership of ATRS, I have put together a four-page summary with charts and graphs to give you a snapshot of our financial condition. It’s based on the data through the end of last fiscal year, so it covers July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025. You can access it here: https://www.artrs.gov/Publications/Annual_Financial_Snapshot/ATRS_2025_Snapshot.pdf   

 

Holiday Plans

The ATRS office, as with other state offices, will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. For our Active ATRS members working in Arkansas’s public schools, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas break and are able to relax and enjoy time with family and friends. And for all of our members, we at ATRS wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season!  

 

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