Virginia

Virginia has one main public pension system: the Virginia Retirement System (VRS).

The VRS board represents public sector employees and consists of 9 members: 5 appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the General Assembly; 4 appointed by the Joint Rules Committee and confirmed by the General Assembly.
- According to its 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, the VRS’ general investment consultants are likely Mercer and Aon.

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

By Asset Manager

AQR Funds