Week 5 was a "3 steps forward and 2 steps back" week. ATRS had three (3) bills for consideration by the Joint Retirement Committee on Monday, February 6, 2017. HB1304 and HB1305 were voted out of the Committee "DO PASS" and SB233 was held in Committee for consideration next week. On Wednesday, both HB1304 and HB1305 were returned to the Joint Retirement Committee for additional review and clarification. All three of the bills ready for action are now back in committee. Concerns arose that HB1304 would impact local property taxes on real property held by ATRS and otherwise could give ATRS an unfair competitive advantage over private owners. HB1304 does not impact the payment of property taxes by ATRS and was a clarification bill.
ATRS looks forward to better explaining the bill on Monday, February 13, 2017, back in the Joint Retirement Committee. If you would like to see a very detailed analysis of HB1304 that was sent to the members of the General Assembly on Thursday, February 9, 2017, a copy of the email with attachments that was sent to members of the General Assembly is attached to this update.
ATRS did have several meetings and telephone calls with school officials, members of the General Assembly, ATRS members, and other school advocates to discuss the 20 bill ATRS legislative package. ATRS is working on amendments to certain bills to reflect agreements and to further clarify language and intent.
ATRS staff met with Representative Tosh on HB1336 and now expects that amendments are underway to remove ATRS concerns about the bill. This is the bill that originally contained forfeiture of benefit language in the event a retirement system member committed certain crimes. ATRS thanks Representative Tosh for his assistance and cooperation with ATRS on this bill.
On Monday, ATRS will likely have four (4) package bills on the Joint Retirement Committee agenda, SB193, SB233, HB1304, and HB1305. In addition, a bill by Representative Tosh addressing the ATRS five (5) year lookback law is also expected to be on the agenda. ATRS worked with Representative Tosh to find acceptable language and is neutral on this bill. Monday is stacking up to be a busy day in the Joint Retirement Committee for ATRS. SB142 is now an official act of the 91st General Assembly. SB142 became Act 127 of 2017. Again, thank you Senator Cooper for sponsoring this bill that ensures the independence of the ATRS Internal Auditor.
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:
2. Bill Summary