We've sold out of our room block at the Austin Marriott Downtown, the official hotel venue for the TEXPERS' 2023 Annual Conference, April 2-5 in Austin, Texas!

House Committee on Pensions, Investment, and Financial Services members met on March 1 to discuss the Employee Retirement System and the Teacher Retirement System, among other topics.

The 88th Texas Legislative Session is in full swing, with lawmakers proposing and debating bills that could significantly impact public employee pension plans.

TEXPERS is holding Basic and Advanced training on Saturday, April 1, 2023, at the Austin Marriott Downtown, 304 E. Cesar Chavez St.

When you attend a pensions and investment conference, taking notes can be invaluable. Jotting down notes will help you remember topics and ideas for managing the secure retirement of your fund's annuitants.

As conference attendees, finding a convenient and comfortable place to stay can be difficult. Staying at the on-site hotel of a conference venue is more convenient than staying off-site. 

For public pension fund trustees, administrators and investment firm managers, business success relies heavily on networking and connecting with the right people. Participating in a golf tournament is an ideal way to achieve both goals while having fun.

State and local government public pensions weren't among Gov. Greg Abbot's State of the State address on Feb. 16; however, he did discuss the importance of the public education system in Texas, touted previous increases to teacher pay, and said the current legislative session could do even more for the educational system and teachers. 

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan announced committee assignments on Feb. 8, naming Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Keller, chair of the Committee on Pensions, Investments & Financial Services.

On Saturday, Feb. 4, a specific group of U.S. Postal Service workers will get some much-needed love. 

The Senate Committee on Finance met on Jan. 30, 2023, to discuss Senate Bill 1, the Senate budget proposal, and to hear presentations from the Legislative Budget Board and Article 1 agencies. It was necessary to reschedule the hearing due to inclement weather; however, the Texas Pension Review Board made its presentation. 

Most defined benefit (DB) plans—including public, multi-employer, and even frozen corporate plans—can benefit from private investment (PI) strategies. It is common knowledge that private investments offer important value in the form of increased expected investment returns, and that they can be instrumental in improving funded status. Despite this, many plan sponsors still abruptly cut off PI commitments or do not optimize their usage as the plan matures.

As investors who employ a bottom-up process when seeking quality companies, we’re intrigued with the growing valuation discount between our portfolios and their respective indices. We find it compelling that today we can purchase a higher-quality portfolio for a discounted price relative to the index, creating an attractive entry point for our actively managed small- to mid-cap value strategies. But before we get to that, let’s take a step back and look at how we got here.

NEWS RELEASE - Northern Trust, a global asset manager, expects 2023 to be a turbulent year as conditions pivot from inflation and monetary policy fears to a weak global economy, but the firm also expects market volatility to somewhat temper due to lower inflation and a pause in central bank interest rate increases. A reduction in rates is not seen as likely. 

TEXPERS System Members will likely keep an eye on the Senate Committee on State Affairs, which reviews legislation under its purview, including pension regulations, during the 88th Legislative Session. 

The first week of Texas' 88th Legislative Session is in recess until Jan. 17, ending a day of debates in the House and drawing of terms in the Senate. 

The Pension Review Board recently launched a new Minimum Educational Training website, according to a memo the state agency distributed to Texas public pension trustees and administrators on Jan. 9. 

James "Jim" A. Smith has resigned from the Texas Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems’ Board of Directors.

UPDATE 1/10/23 - Texas' 88th legislative session adjourned on Jan. 10 after completing opening ceremonies during which Gov. Greg Abbott congratulated newly elected and re-elected members of the House and Senate as well as Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who was reelected today as House Speaker for the session.

People 65 and older experienced an increase in poverty in 2021, according to the official poverty measure from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Bureau recently highlighted data from its Poverty in the United States: 2021 report originally released in September 2022 as the nation prepares to observe Poverty Awareness Month in the United States this January 2023.