Montana

Montana has eight public pension systems: the Montana Teachers’ Retirement System (MTRS) and seven pension fund systems overseen by the Montana Public Employees Retirement Administration (MPERA): the Public Employees’ Retirement System, the Judges’ Retirement System, the Highway Patrol Officers’ Retirement System, the Sheriffs’ Retirement System, the Game Wardens’ and Peace Officers’ Retirement System, the Municipal Police Officers’ Retirement System, and the Firefighters Retirement System. The Montana Board of Investments (BOI) oversees MPERA’s investments.

• The MTRS board consists of 6 members: 5 appointed by the Governor (2 teachers who are active members of the retirement system, 1 retired teacher who is a retired member of the system, 1 public member who is not a teacher, appointed from the general public, 1 school administrator who is an active member of the retirement system); 1 Ex Officio (State Superintendent of Public Instruction).
• The BOI board consists of 11 members: 9 appointed by the Governor representing a balance of professional expertise and public interest(Montana law, the Public Employees’ Retirement Board, the Teachers’ Retirement Board, the financial community, small businesses, agriculture, labor); 2 Ex Officio, nonvoting legislative liaisons (1 Senator appointed by the President of the Senate and 1 Representative appointed by the Speaker of the House) from different political parties.

The “By Asset Manager” and “Asset Manager Voting” tables show the proxy voting records of the state’s asset managers who manage the pensions’ stock market portfolio through index, exchange-traded, or mutual funds. Since these are externally managed funds, the asset managers typically retain and exercise proxy voting privileges. This data is used to calculate the state’s pro-ESG and anti-ESG scores to see how the state leverages its externally managed funds in proxy voting.

The “State Voting” table shows MPERA’s proxy voting records for directly owned securities through pension fund portfolios. This data was obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request since Montana does not publicly disclose this information to its pensioners. The 1792 Exchange encourages Montana to publish its proxy voting records instead of keeping its pensioners in the dark about how the state votes on ESG issues with their money.

Both tables are important to show a comprehensive picture of the state’s proxy voting record.