Week 5 at the General Assembly was a busy week on ATRS legislation.  All but one of the ATRS bills is out of Committee and two are already on the Governor's desk.  The last ATRS bill in committee should be heard on Monday, February 16, 2015 in Joint Retirement Committee and hopefully will be favorably viewed by Committee members.  ATRS staff remains very busy working on legislative issues and working with legislators to provide updates and input on issues involving ATRS.  ATRS appreciates the helps for many legislators this session. 

The ATRS Package Bills are still right about where ATRS had expected for this point in the session.  ATRS has no additional information on the shell bill that was activated into an active bill last week.  The same information as last week about the amended shell bill is in this week's update. 

I have attached an updated bill summary for the 90th General Assembly regarding bills affecting ATRS through today.  ATRS has 7 "package" bills and one appropriation bill for 8 ATRS supported bills.  ATRS and the Board are very grateful to the sponsors who have helped with the ATRS bill package in this session.  Three retirement shell bills introduced by Representatives were removed by the House rules since the bills were not activated by last Friday.  Now only 2 unamended shell bills are active that could be amended to affect ATRS.   ATRS has had discussions about one of those 2 bills potentially being activated to clarify military service credit at ATRS. 

One ATRS package bill is still in the Public Retirement Committee.  ATRS expects it will be on the Public Retirement Committee's agenda on Monday morning.  The last bill is:  

HB1078 by Representative Gary Deffenbaugh Option C Beneficiary Change.

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

Status and Summary of ATRS Bill Package