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If you're leaving the ASRS prior to retirement, you may be wondering if you should refund your account. You can, but you don't have to. You have options!

Think a 401(k) Might Be Better? Guess Again!

Every two weeks you see that 11.5% coming out of your paycheck, earmarked for a pension or long term disability that you don’t anticipate needing for a long time to come. Sometimes you may wonder if you would be better off with a different type of retirement plan, like a 401(k). Well, here are some facts that might make you feel better about your ASRS pension:

Unless you happen to be very familiar with pension systems, you probably haven’t heard of the company CEM Benchmarking before. But, for the ASRS, they’re a valuable resource that provides helpful data to evaluate both where we’re at and how best to move forward.

At the end of each fiscal year (June 30), the ASRS calculates a year-end rate of return on the total fund. The return for June 30, 2017 was 13.9 percent, positively impacting the financial health of the pension fund and helping to reduce upward pressure on future contribution rates.

Retiring is easy. Just pick one of seven annuity options available and you’re done.    

You may be saying to yourself “Wait. I have to figure out seven different options? What’s the difference between them?  Which is the right one for me and my family?” A good way to grasp the different options is to note that while there may be seven options, they fall into one of three categories:

This year, the ASRS will celebrate its 65th Anniversary.

In the 21^st session of the Arizona State Legislature, Governor Howard Pyle signed the bill that created the ASRS as of July 1^st, 1953 as a pension plan for employees of state and municipal government.

The first public pension in Arizona, however, was issued in 1912, the year Arizona entered statehood. It was granted to a teacher, in the amount of $50 a month ($600 a year). In 1955, the teacher’s pension plan and the ASRS merged, creating a statewide retirement system.