Iowa

Iowa has four main public pension systems: the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS), the Municipal Fire and Police Retirement System of Iowa (MFPRSI), the Judicial Retirement System (JRS), and the Peace Officers’ Retirement, Accident, and Disability System (PORS). The Iowa Legislature created the IPERS Investment Board to establish policies and hire professional service contractors for IPERS’ investments.

• The IPERS Investment Board consists of 7 voting members and 4 nonvoting members
  • The voting members are: 1 Ex Officio (State Treasurer); 6 appointed by the Governor, (3 who are members of IPERS  (an active member who is an employee of a school district, area education agency, or merged area; an active member who is not an employee of a school district, area education agency, or merged area; and a retired member of IPERS) and 3 who are not members of IPERS and have substantial institutional investment experience or substantial institutional financial experience).
    • The nonvoting members are 2 state representatives and 2 state senators
  • According to its 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, IPER’s general investment consultant is Wilshire.
  • According to its 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, IPERS allows its asset managers to vote their proxies: “Any voting rights of securities held in any separate account, or any collective, common, or pooled fund will be exercised by the manager, trustees, or agents of said account or fund in accordance with their own proxy voting policies, provided that such policies have been reviewed by the System and deemed to be in the best economic interests of IPERS. The System shall periodically review each investment manager’s proxy voting policy and its compliance with such policies.” According to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, they are using ISS for their proxy advisory services.
• The MFPRSI Board consists of 9 voting members and 4 nonvoting members
  • The voting members are 4 representatives of the active and retired fire and police membership (four); 4 representatives of the cities; and 1 private citizen. Individuals are appointed to the Board by the police and fire associations and by the Iowa League of Cities. The 8 voting members select a private citizen to serve as the 9th voting member.
  • According to its 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, MFPRSI’s general investment consultant is Marquette.

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