Legislation

On Wednesday the House and Senate completed their business and recessed. It's possible they may come back between now and May 5 to deal with vetoes, but I don't expect anything related to ATRS to come up. We can now close the book on the 95th General Assembly.

Of the retirement-related bills that we have been tracking, two more made it out. The House and Senate gave final approval to HB1352, which restricts our ability to invest in China, and HB1365, which removes the requirement that ATRS and other boards and commissions have minority members. I expect that the Governor will sign both bills into law.

I'm grateful that although we saw some bills that were problematic, there was nothing introduced, much less passed, that threatened ATRS member benefits or our Board's independence. 

I've limited these update emails to focus on key bills that would have a significant impact on ATRS and its members, but you should know that we worked on many other bills. Altogether, we tracked a total of 127 bills during this legislative session -- monitoring their filings, talking with sponsors, attending committee meetings, and working with other stakeholders. This list includes the 7 bills in the ATRS legislative package, our 1 appropriation bill, and 9 bills that directly affected ATRS.

The rest of these 127 bills were bills that applied to state government as a whole or had an indirect effect on our operations. This includes major bills like SB392, which reshapes the pay plan for ATRS and other state employees, and SB227 which makes significant changes to the Freedom of Information Act. The list also includes more minor bills like SB241 which allows ATRS and other state employees to take catastrophic leave for the death of a family member, and SB565 which simplifies state procurement requirements. Altogether, we have identified 31 bills that are becoming law that will require some action by our staff to implement. 

You may be interested to know that this was a more active session than the 2023 session. During this session, the House filed 1,005 bills and the Senate filed 647 bills. When you add in resolutions, there were a combined total of 1,928 filings. But in 2023, the House filed only 849 bills and the Senate 590 bills. By my count, legislators in this session filed 16% more bills and resolutions than 2023, and this year's session was 5 days longer than 2023.

Because the Legislature has concluded their business, this will be my last legislative update email for this year. If you ever have questions or concerns about ATRS, you are always welcome to reach out to me at the email address or phone number below.

Mark White
ATRS Executive Director
MarkW@artrs.gov
Office: (501) 621-8853
Cell: (501) 541-2057