Your APERS Pension — What Public Employees Should Know
A plain-language guide to APERS's $15 million Israel Bonds purchase and the safeguards Arkansas public employees can support.
What happened with APERS money
On May 15, 2025, the APERS Investment Finance Subcommittee authorized an Israel Bonds purchase in a $25–$50 million range. On October 15, APERS bought a two-year institutional bond for $15M.
The completed purchase was $10M below the minimum named in the motion. APERS members deserve a written explanation of how the agency treated that difference.
Why public employees should care: APERS chose a bond that cannot be sold on a secondary market. Members deserve to know how the expected return, credit risk, and loss of liquidity compared with other investments available to the system.
What APERS put before the Board
A February 2026 email from APERS’s chief investment officer makes the transparency problem concrete. Members are left to reconstruct the financial case from an authorization, operational follow-up, and the later purchase. A decision memo from APERS staff or Callan should bring the sovereign-credit case, expected return, liquidity, and alternatives together in one place.
Read the signed APERS minutes →
Read the staff email → Read the $15M purchase record →
The questions APERS members can ask
- What analysis supported the $25–$50 million authorization?
- Why was the completed $15M purchase below the motion’s stated minimum?
- How did APERS compare the bond’s yield and liquidity with other fixed-income options?
- What role did Callan have before the vote, if any?
- What policy will APERS use for the next non-tradable sovereign-debt purchase?
APERS in context
APERS reported an overall funded ratio of roughly 83% in its fiscal year 2024 actuarial valuation. A $15M purchase is a small share of the system’s portfolio, but the same governance standard should apply throughout: show the financial work, explain the trade-offs, and put members first.
What the Integrity Act would change
The Pension Investment Integrity Act would require a written credit analysis, alternatives comparison, liquidity explanation, and fiduciary determination for a covered purchase. APERS would post that material within 30 days after the transaction.
Trustees would keep their authority. Members would gain a usable public explanation.
A message you can send
I am an Arkansas public employee and an APERS member. Please support the Pension Investment Integrity Act in the 2027 session. APERS authorized a $25–$50 million range and later purchased $15 million in Israel Bonds. Members deserve a clear written account of the credit, return, liquidity, and alternatives analysis behind covered pension investments. The Integrity Act would create that issuer-neutral process while leaving investment decisions with the trustees.
Contact your legislators → or read the APERS source documents →.