Arkansas
Overview
Two state retirement systems—the Arkansas Teachers Retirement System and the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System—account for most public pension plan assets and participants in Arkansas. Other statewide systems include the Arkansas Local Police & Fire Retirement System and the Arkansas State Highways Employees Retirement System. Each system is responsible for managing its assets.
Arkansas TRS provides pension and other benefits to public school teachers and other employees of public educational institutions in the state.
Arkansas PERS administers pension and other benefits to nearly all public employees in the state except for teachers, highway employees, and local police officers & firefighters. Three boards oversee APERS: the Arkansas Public Employees’ Retirement System Board; the State Police Retirement System Board; and the Arkansas Judicial Employees’ Retirement System Board. The PERS board is responsible for investing assets of the State Police Trust Fund.
Plan Design
Defined benefit plans serve as the primary retirement benefit for substantially all public employees in Arkansas.
According to the US Government Accountability Office, 94 percent of employees of state and local government in Arkansas participate in Social Security.
Authorizing Statutes and Board Structure
Title 24 of the Arkansas Code authorizes and describes retirement systems in the state.
Arkansas TRS: The TRS board is made up of 15 members as described in Title 24-7.
Arkansas PERS: Nine members comprise the PERS board, as described in Title 24-4.
Details regarding the composition of these and other retirement boards is accessible via the Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics search tool located at the bottom of this page.
Fiduciary Duty/Prudence Standard
Arkansas Code § 24-2-611, titled Prudent Investor Rule, states:
Trustees shall invest and manage trust assets as a prudent investor would, by considering the purposes, terms, distribution requirements, and other circumstances of the trust. In satisfying this standard, the trustees shall exercise reasonable care, skill, and caution.
(b) The trustees' investment and management decisions respecting individual assets must be evaluated not in isolation but in the context of the trust portfolio as a whole and as a part of an overall investment strategy having risk and return objectives reasonably suited to the trust.
(c) Among circumstances that trustees shall consider in investing and managing trust assets are such of the following as are relevant to the trust or its beneficiaries:
(1) General economic conditions;
(2) The possible effect of inflation or deflation;
(3) The expected tax consequences of investment decisions or strategies;
(4) The role that each investment or course of action plays within the overall trust portfolio, which may include financial assets, interests in closely held enterprises, tangible and intangible personal property, and real property;
(5) The expected total return from income and the appreciation of capital;
(6) Other resources of the beneficiaries;
(7) Needs for liquidity, regularity of income, and preservation or appreciation of capital; and
(8) An asset's special relationship or special value, if any, to the purposes of the trust or to one (1) or more of the beneficiaries.
(d) Trustees shall make a reasonable effort to verify facts relevant to the investment and management of trust assets.
(e) Trustees may invest in any kind of property or type of investment consistent with the standards of this subchapter.
(f) Trustees who have special skills or expertise, or who are named trustees in reliance upon the trustees' representation that the trustees have special skills or expertise, have a duty to use their special skills or expertise.
Legal Protections of Retirement Benefits
No explicit constitutional protection for public pension benefits; courts provide limited protection for contributory vested pension benefits. See Jones v. Cheney, 489 S.W.2d 785 (1973) (holding that vested pension benefits funded with employee contributions are protected from impairment); compare Blackwood v. Floyd, 29 S.W.3d 691 (Ark. 2000) (holding that non-contributory pension benefits are a mere gratuity). (AR CONST., Article 2, §17) Source: Robert Klausner, Esq., State Constitutional Protections for Public Sector Retirement Benefits
See also the following search tools:
Retirement System Account Interest Policies | Economic Actuarial Assumptions | Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics |
Information about interest rates applied to account balances of inactive plan participants | Assumed rates of investment return and inflation | Composition and characteristics of public retirement and investment oversight boards |
Mortality Assumptions | Plan Design Features | Post-retirement Employment Policies |
Public retirement system actuarial assumptions for mortality | Numerous elements of retirement plan design | Policies governing return-to-work for retirement system annuitants |
More Data
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Population (2024) 3,088,354 |
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Arkansas public pension statistics, |
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Assets |
$39.7 billion |
Active Members |
147,289 |
Annuitants |
129,435 |
Benefits Paid |
$2.6 billion |
Employee Contributions |
$401.7 million |
Employer Contributions |
$1.3 billion |
Systems |
Four state systems that together account for 99 percent of assets and 98 percent of public pension plan participants in the state. The Census Bureau also reports 61 local systems, which are predominantly small plans for firefighters. |