Natural State News

As of June 2020, Arkansas had received $1.2 million in contributions to its public pension funds, according to data obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Public Pensions.

Of that amount, $1.1 million was in state pension funds, and the remaining $32,007 was in local government pension funds.

The survey includes public pensions sponsored by local and state government entities with employees who are compensated with public funds. The local governments include counties, townships, school districts and special districts.

The data gathered includes revenues, expenditures, financial assets, membership and liabilities information.

Residents in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming do not pay state income taxes.

The Census Bureau cautions that not all respondents answer all survey questions. Thus, some fields were left blank.

Arkansas reported data from 136 pension systems, including six state-level pension funds and 130 local-level systems. The total number of pension system members was 274,604 (270,472 at the state level and 4,132 at the local level).

	Local	State	Local & State
Employee contributions	$4,009	$244,816	$248,825
Government contributions	$27,998	$886,395	$914,393
Total Contributions	$32,007	$1,131,211	$1,163,218

Source: US Census Bureau