Arizona
Arizona has two main public pension systems, the Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) and the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS).
- ASRS covers more than a half-million state and municipal employees. The ASRS board consists of 9 members: All members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.
- PSPRS covers first responders, corrections officers, elected officials, and judges. The PSPRS board consists of 9 members: 5 appointed by the governor; 2 appointed by the Senate President; 2 appointed by the House Speaker.
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 the state’s proxy voting records for directly owned securities through pension fund portfolios. The data in this table only represents the ASRS. This data was obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request since Arizona does not publicly disclose this information to its pensioners. The 1792 Exchange encourages Arizona 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.
