Tennessee
Tennessee has one main public pension system: The Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System (TCRS).
- The TCRS board represents all eligible state and local employees and consists of 20 members: 9 Ex Officio (State Treasurer, Director of TCRS, Chair of the Legislative Council on Pensions and Insurance, Vice-Chair of the Legislative Council on Pensions and Insurance, Commissioner of Human Resources, Commissioner of Finance and Administration, Comptroller of the Treasury, Secretary of State, Administrative Director of the Courts); 2 appointed by the Governor; 3 teachers appointed by the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; 1 retired teacher appointed by the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; 1 appointed by the Tennessee County Services Association; 1 appointed by the Tennessee Municipal League; 1 appointed by the Tennessee County Officials 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 TCRS’ proxy voting records for directly owned securities through pension fund portfolios. This data was obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request since Tennessee does not publicly disclose this information to its pensioners]. The 1792 Exchange encourages Tennessee 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.
