News

SPAM WARNING for our Members

Recently a retirement system in another state reported SPAM emails being sent out to their members requesting personal information. The article reported “The emails may say that your retirement plan benefits have changed, some promise a complimentary estimate in exchange for your personal information. Please beware of such emails”.

Even though there have been NO reported occurrences of this scam in Arkansas, our members need to aware of the following:

APERS, like most retirement systems, WILL NOT send out emails requesting personal information because it is not secure.

If you do receive an email stating it is from APERS and requesting personal information (name, age, social security number, annual income, etc.), please do not reply to it and let APERS know about it as soon as possible. You can contact Marcy Marks at our main office at 501-682-7800 or 800 - 682-7377.

All APERS Employers

In accordance with the laws regulating the retirement system and
based on the annual valuation prepared by our actuary, Gabriel Roeder Smith, the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees at its regularly scheduled meeting on November 19, 2003 determined that the current employer contribution rate of 10% will increase to 11.09% beginning July 1, 2004. (NOTE: The School employers rate will remain at 4%).

Correspondence will be mailed to all employers within the next several days.

Please contact our Administrative Services Section at
(501) 682-7818 with any questions.

Important Notice!!

APERS Budget Enacted

In the Special Session of the General Assembly held during the week of May 5, 2003, both chambers of the legislature quickly passed the APERS appropriation bill, HB 1026, and Governor Huckabee immediately signed it into law. Act 36 will allow APERS to continue all business activities as usual after July 1, 2003. RETIREMENT BENEFITS WILL BE PAID WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. All eligible retirees will receive the 3% Cost of Living increase on July 1st as planned.

February 1, 2002

A letter From the Director's Office to the Apers Membership

Everyone has heard at least something about the spectacular collapse of Enron Corporation. The media has highlighted the damage that failure has brought to peoples' retirement plans. Unfortunately, in their haste to get the "story" out, the newspaper and network journalists are unnecessarily scaring people like you who are members and retirees of APERS.

Yes, like virtually all other public retirement plans around the country, we lost money by investing in Enron. We researched our records back to 1994 and, all told, we lost approximately $12 million. While that seems like a lot of money -- certainly money we would rather have not lost -- it was only a fraction of one percent of our total fund.

The important thing to remember is that the APERS benefit program is secure; no one's accrued pension benefit is imperiled by the loss in Enron or even by the recent downturn in the US economy. In fact, the retirement laws passed in the Arkansas General Assembly virtually guarantee the benefits to which you are entitled.

The Enron event provides a perfect example of why a Defined Benefit (DB) program, such as APERS, that guarantees you a monthly retirement annuity for the rest of your life is such a wonderful benefit. In the very recent past, many have called for a shift to a Defined Contribution (DC) program, where all the investment risk is shifted from the trust fund to you, the member. In a DC program, you decide how to invest your money, and whatever is in your account at retirement is what will have to last you for the rest of your life. If, for instance, in 1998 you decided that you would retire in 2001 and were heavily invested in high growth technology stocks, by the time the year 2001 rolled around, you would have virtually nothing to retire on. It is in similar circumstances that some peoples' retirement savings were wiped out by the Enron collapse.

The APERS investment program is managed by some of the best institutional money managers in the world, but even the best financial wizards are not going to make money on every stock or bond position in their portfolio. The APERS Board of Trustees has carefully diversified the plan among many different asset classes and investment styles. This diversification serves you well for the following reason: No one can know when a particular security or asset class will come into favor. We must be invested across a broad spectrum so as to take advantage of profitable opportunities as they arise.

Rest assured that the staff at APERS continues to work hard on your behalf to ensure the soundness of the trust, and that we will be well positioned to enjoy any market gains when the economy rebounds, as it inevitably will.

Sincerely,

Gail H. Stone
Executive Director