Oklahoma

Oklahoma has two main public pension systems: the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) and the Oklahoma Teachers’ Retirement System (OTRS).

• The OPERS board represents public employees of the state; the board consists of 13 members: 5 Ex Officio (State Treasurer, State Insurance Commissioner, Oklahoma Tax Commission, Corporate Commissioner, Director of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services); 3 appointed by the Governor; 2 appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives; 2 appointed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate; 1 appointed by the Supreme Court.
• The OTRS board represents public school teachers and employees and consists of 15 members: 5 Ex Officio (Governor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Director of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, Director of the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education, the State Treasurer); 1 member appointed by the Governor; 2 members appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate; 2 members appointed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate; 2 members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives; 1 nonvoting member appointed by the Oklahoma Retired Educations Association.

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 OPERS proxy voting records for directly owned securities through pension fund portfolios. This data was obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request since Oklahoma does not publicly disclose this information to its pensioners. The 1792 Exchange encourages Oklahoma 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.