On Tuesday, the Joint Public Retirement & Social Security Committee held its organizational meeting under the leadership of co-chairs Rep. Les Warren and Sen. Jim Dotson. The chairs introduced the committee members and the directors of the four state retirement systems. They also discussed how the committee will operate during this session. You can watch the video recording of the meeting here.
The Committee will meet again in the afternoon of Tuesday, January 28. They have asked me and the directors of the other state retirement systems to make short presentations to update legislators on our systems. After that, the next meeting of the Committee is expected to be two weeks later, on Tuesday, February 11. I do not expect the Committee to consider any bills until February 11 at the earliest.
One thing to remember about this Committee is that for many bills, the bill will not be heard until an actuarial cost study has been completed on that bill. The purpose of these cost studies is to inform legislators about how a bill will affect the long-term finances of the affected retirement systems and their ability to meet their commitments to pay benefits in the future. Jody Carreiro of Little Rock is the actuary contracted to conduct these cost studies on behalf of the Legislature. In addition, for any bill affecting ATRS, we will ask our own actuaries at Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company to conduct an actuarial cost study as well. All of the actuarial cost studies for any bill will be publicly available on the Legislature's website in the bill's history page.
The other thing to remember about this Committee is that for most retirement-related bills, there is a filing deadline. Under the Rules of the House and Senate, any "proposed legislation affecting any publicly supported retirement system or pension plan" must be introduced no later than January 31.
As of the writing of this update, no bills affecting ATRS have been filed, other than the 7 bills in the ATRS legislative package. We are reviewing every bill filed each day of the session, and if any bills are filed that affect ATRS, we will update you.
If you have questions about how a bill may impact ATRS, or if you are concerned about something ATRS is proposing, please reach out to me at the email address or phone number below.
Also, if you are receiving this email as a forward and would like to be added to the distribution list, you can subscribe to these legislative updates here.
Mark White
ATRS Executive Director
MarkW@artrs.gov
Office: (501) 621-8853
Cell: (501) 541-2057