Sept. 16-17 TRS Board Meeting Highlights
- Click here for the TRS board info page.
TRS Board Approves Moving Forward with Plan
To Move Headquarters to Consolidated Site
The TRS board approved a massive relocation plan that will lead to housing all of the system’s operations in a new complex just north of downtown Austin.
read more
Other TRS Activity:
- 13th check — The board authorized (info here and here) giving TRS members who retired on or before Dec. 31, 2020, a supplemental, one-time payment equaling their monthly annuity, with the payment capped at $2,400.
The payments will be made to the system’s 426,000 eligible retired members in January 2022.
The last time the Legislature authorized TRS to give retirees a 13th check was in 2019.
- Executive compensation — The board voted to increase the annual base salaries (effective Oct. 1) of: 1) TRS Executive Director Brian Guthrie to $400,000 (from $355,141), and 2) TRS Chief Investment Officer Jase Auby to $550,000 (from $450,000).
The approved base pay is in addition to compensation received for meeting performance targets.
The board also approved the
performance incentive targets for the executive director and for the chief investment officer and his staff. - Unclaimed payments — The board was briefed (webcast-starts at 29.36/slide) on the efforts (per a Texas Sunset Commission recommendation) to do a better job in notifying individuals who have unclaimed TRS payments.
The effort will include sending notifications via certified mail (return receipt requested), internet searches, and attempts to notify (as appropriate) the member’s heirs.
Staff estimated there are about 185,000 inactive members in its system, with the biggest problem being that they have not kept their contact info current with TRS.
- COVID costs — Staff reported that since the onset of the pandemic, 30 percent of the system’s members have had confirmed or suspected COVID cases, and the retiree and active-member health care plans have paid out $300 million to cover COVID-related health care costs.
- TRS-Care — The board was briefed (slides) on the implementation of recent legislation that allows Medicare eligible retirees — who opted out of TRS-Care between Jan. 1, 2017, and Dec. 31, 2019, a one-time opportunity to rejoin the program by Dec. 31, 2023. (webcast-starts at 27:05 mark/slides)
- ActiveCare “opt outs” — Staff briefed the board (slides/webcast-starts at the beginning) about a provision of SB1444-Taylor/regular session that is designed to rein in the growing practice of ISDs using the so-called District of Innovation “loophole” to offer (often cheaper, less feature rich) alternative health plans to their employees in addition to TRS-ActiveCare (TRS-AC).
Among other things, staff said they will provide to districts, by late November or early December, “preview” regional TRS-AC plans that could be in effect once TRS-AC starts offering TRS-priced plans based on the 20 education service center regions, starting with the next plan year that begins Sept. 1, 2022.
The bill sets Dec. 31 deadlines, starting this year, for districts to notify TRS if they intend to leave (or rejoin, or join for the first time) TRS-AC as of the next plan year that starts each Sept. 1.
A district that elects to leave TRS-AC will have to wait out at least five full plan years before it can rejoin, and then could not leave the program for at least another five years.
The upcoming plan year will be the final year that a district can offer both an alternative plan and TRS-AC.
After that, a district can offer either an alternative plan, or TRS-AC, but not both.
Staff said the information being provided to districts now will help them make meaningful decisions about whether to leave, or stay, in TRS-AC.
- Approved rules — The board approved numerous rules that had been proposed in July for public comment that mostly resulted from regular-session legislation, including several rules addressing employment after retirement. No public comments were received following publication in the Aug. 13 Texas Register — and no changes were made on final adoption.