Week 6 at the General Assembly was another busy week on ATRS legislation. A significant amount of focus has been on working on recycling tax credits and ATRS package bill HB1132 that allows ATRS to benefit from recycling tax credits on e-waste recycling and other recycling facilities. HB1132 has passed the House, but remains in the Senate committee as recycling issues are discussed at the Capitol. SB171 was a shell bill by Senator Bill Sample that is now amended into an active bill to assist ATRS in clarifying military service credit. This means that the original seven ATRS package bills are now increased to eight package bills and one of the ATRS friendly shell bills has become the 8th package bill. All but two of the ATRS bills (HB1078 and SB171) are out of committee and two have been signed into Acts by Governor Hutchinson.
This update has three (3) attachments, the weekly update on the session, the bill summary and current status of all bills, and the bullet points for SB171, the new ATRS package bill that clarifies, but does not change existing ATRS law and process.
The last two ATRS bills are on the Public Retirement Committee's agenda to be heard on Monday, February 23, 2015, and hopefully will be favorably viewed by the Public Retirement Committee. ATRS is hopeful wintry weather does not impact the Public Retirement Committee meeting on Monday. ATRS staff remains very busy working on legislative issues and working with legislators to provide updates and input on projects involving ATRS. ATRS appreciates the help of many legislators this session.
Remember that ATRS has a new website that allows members to have direct access to specific member account information. Active members, retirees, T-DROP participants, and CBA account holders can see relevant and specific account information. Active members can access a handy benefits calculator to see how retirement would look now or at a future time.
ATRS now has over 2,500 registered direct access members since registration started on August 1st. Here is the link to an update that provides instructions on the 10 to 15 minute process it takes for a member to register to have direct access to specific ATRS account information: https://www.artrs.gov/general/director-updates/716-08-15-2014-executive-director-update-the-new-atrs-website.
If you have not signed up to obtain the executive director updates through your private email address, you can obtain the executive director update on the ATRS website. The update attached to this email is also available on the ATRS website at https://www.artrs.gov/general/director-updates. Now, almost 8,000 people have signed up to receive this executive director email update and other ATRS information via an email listserve. In addition, over 10,000 people have access to the ATRS executive director updates via email delivery. It is always a great pleasure for ATRS staff to learn of more ways to provide information to ATRS members, employers, and beneficiaries. 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 at http://www.facebook.com/arkansasteacherretirementsystem under the name of Arkansas Teacher Retirement System. Over 2,300 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 follow events at ATRS and issues of interest by finding the Twitter ID of ATRS or find George Hopkins in the Twitter directory. The link is https://twitter.com/atrs ATRS is here to serve you!
Respectfully,
George Hopkins
Click on the following document(s) for more information:
90th General Assembly; Narrative