20 vie to direct pension system
Posted on Saturday, November 15, 2008
Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, and former Sen. George Hopkins, D-Malvern, are among 20 applicants vying to be the executive director of the Arkansas Teacher Retirement, system records show.
Each acknowledges that if he got the job his state retirement would be substantially enhanced over what he is to get from serving in the Legislature.
The system’s previous $ ™, 000-a-year executive director, Paul Doane, resigned last month, after a state audit over his travel expenses — which included 21 trips out of state to places where he has homes — irked lawmakers.
Argue, 57, is president of the United Methodist Foundation of Arkansas. Hopkins, 50, is an attorney.
Argue, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has served in the Legislature since 1991. He is term-limited from seeking re-election, and his term ends at the end of the year.
Hopkins served in Senate from 1987-2000 and served six years as co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Retirement.
The past two executive directors were former legislators.
Former state Sen. David Malone, D-Fayetteville, was executive director from 2003-07 and Doane was a former Republican state senator from Massachusetts.
Argue said he’s interested in the job because it would be an important challenge and an opportunity to continue his public service. Some of the system’s trustees encouraged him to apply for the post, he said.
Argue said he would take strong leadership and communications skills, and an investment background running the Methodist Foundation’s investment portfolio to the job. Others might have stronger investment credentials than he does, but the executive director doesn’t have all the investment expertise for the system, he said.
Hopkins said he’s seeking the executive director’s job because retirement issues intrigued and interested him when he served in the Senate. He said his family, friends and clients urged him to seek the job.
“I would consider it an honor and a significant fiduciary duty to try to take that position and assist that system in making teacher and school employees ’ retirements stable, assured and responsible,” Hopkins said.
Legislators in office before July 1, 1991, get to count their legislative service twice when calculating retirement benefits. If they later take a higher-paying state job, the higher salary is used to calculate retirement benefits, instead of just their legislative salary, which is about $ 15, 000.
Individual retirement benefits are kept confidential, but Hopkins upon request in 2005 helped the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette decipher the two-for-one legislative retirement law.
The newspaper’s analysis found that Malone — counting his 22 years in the Legislature as 44 for retirement purposes — could have retired from the top job at the teacher retirement system with a state pension of about $ 125, 000 a year.
Argue would have 36 years for retirement calculation based on 18 years in the Legislature and Hopkins would have 28 from 14 years in the Legislature.
As references, Argue listed House Speaker-designate Robbie Wills, D-Conway; and Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, D-Crossett, cochairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Retirement.
Hopkins listed Don Zimmerman, executive director of the Arkansas Municipal League; and Charles Dunn, former president of Henderson State University. He’s an ally of state Sen. Steve Faris, D-Central, who also is influential on state retirement matters.
According to system records obtained by the Democrat-Gazette in a Freedom of Information Act request, other applicants for the executive director’s job include: Roger Coomer, vice president of finance and administration at Ouachita Technical College in Malvern.
Larry Burks, a partner in the Friday, Eldredge & Clark law firm in Little Rock. Holly Whitcombe, executive director of the Arkansas Electric Energy Consumers Inc.
The system’s board of trustees is to meet in an executive session on personnel matters Tuesday.
The trustees voted Oct. 30 to begin advertising the executive director’s job. Richard Abernathy of Bryant, chairman of the system’s board of directors, has said he “would love” to hire a permanent executive director before the legislative session starts Jan. 12.
The system holds roughly $ 10 billion worth of investments.
The system includes 69, 226 working members who are each paid an average annual salary of $ 31, 645, and 25, 611 retirees who are paid annual retirement benefits of $ 485 million, according to the system’s actuary, Gabriel Roeder, Smith & Co.
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