# APERS Board Governance Structure The APERS-side parallel to [[atrs-board-governance-structure]]. This concept page captures what the wiki currently knows about the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees structure from the Chunk 1 APERS R1 production. The structure will be substantially expanded by Chunk 3's reading of the JUL 25 PDF E32 (APERS Board Meeting Packet for June 11, 2025) and E35 (the second APERS packet copy) and E34 (ASPRS Board Meeting Packet) and E31/E33 (AJRS Board Meeting Packets). ## Investment Finance Subcommittee (IFSC) The 5/15/2025 IFSC meeting authorized $25 to $50 million in Israel Bonds and three infrastructure secondaries funds at $100M each. The IFSC roster per Fecher's 5/14/2025 9:12 AM packet distribution to subcommittee members: - **[[larry-walther]]** — Chair ([email protected]). Per the 5/15/2025 agenda item 1: "Call to order and recognition of new subcommittee chair – Larry Walther." Walther was previously Arkansas State Treasurer August 2023 to January 2025. Per Brady's IFSC remarks reported by Wickline, Walther personally purchased Israel Bonds during his Treasurer tenure. - **[[gary-wallace]]** — Member ([email protected]). Personal-domain email; specific role not yet documented. - **[[jason-brady]]** — Member ([email protected]). Auditor's-office Chief Deputy; presumably serves as Auditor [[dennis-milligan]]'s designee on the IFSC parallel to his ATRS Board designee role. Made the Israel Bonds motion at the 5/15/2025 meeting. - **[[daryl-bassett]]** — Member ([email protected]). Cabinet Secretary, Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing. - **[[carnahan-ifsc]]** — Member ([email protected]). Non-state-domain email; full name not yet documented. - **[[jim-hudson]]** — Member ([email protected]). Cabinet Secretary, Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. Provided the substantive intervention that set the $50M ceiling on the Israel Bonds motion. Six members total. The mix includes: one chair (Walther, former state Treasurer), three cabinet/agency officials (Brady-as-Auditor-designee, Bassett-DLL, Hudson-DFA), and two other members (Wallace, Carnahan) of unspecified provenance. The CC pattern on Fecher's IFSC distribution adds Sharon Mahoney (DFA, presumably Hudson's staff), Anita Chance (ADLL, presumably Bassett's staff), and Wendy Spadoni (Auditor's office, Brady's staff), routing IFSC packet distribution through three external state-domain offices. ## APERS Senior Staff The 5/14/2025 9:14 AM Fecher distribution corrected the 9:12 AM original to add APERS internal staff cc: - **[[amy-fecher]]** — Executive Director ([email protected]). 124 W. Capitol Ave, Suite 400, Little Rock AR 72201. Phone 501-682-7854. - **[[carlos-borromeo]]** — Deputy Director Investments and Finance / Chief Investment Officer ([email protected]). Phone 501-682-7864. - **[[ashley-golleher]]** — Deputy Director of Operations ([email protected]). Phone 501-682-7831. - **[[laura-gilson]]** — General Counsel ([email protected]). Phone 501-682-7853. - **[[brooke-hollowoa]]** — Director of Communications ([email protected], implied from APERS pattern). Phone 501-682-5435. - **[[allison-woods]]** — staff role TBD. - **[[richmond-giles]]** — staff role TBD; cc on FOIA-handling correspondence. - **[[patty-shipp]]** — staff role TBD. - **[[jacobia-bates]]** — staff role TBD. - **[[phillip-norton]]** — staff role TBD; surfaced in Chunk 2 FOIA-handling correspondence. Plus **[[usha-doolabh]]** (cc'd on the 12/10/2024 Mryyan FOIA forward). ## APERS administers ASPRS and AJRS investment functions Borromeo's 12/10/2024 Mryyan FOIA reply uses "APERS/ASPRS/AJRS" as a single administrative unit: "since August 01, 2017, APERS/ASPRS/AJRS has made zero investments with the Development Company for Israel." This establishes APERS as the administrative principal for the investment functions of the Arkansas State Police Retirement System and Arkansas Judicial Retirement System. Per the seed-list, this is the Act 1242 commingling pathway. Whether the 5/15/2025 IFSC Israel Bonds authorization extends to ASPRS and AJRS investment funds via the same administrative pathway, without separate authorizing action by either system, is to be confirmed by Chunk 3 (which reads the AJRS June 12 and ASPRS June 11 Board Meeting Packets). ## Pending board-roster documentation The full APERS Board of Trustees roster is not in this chunk's production. The June 11, 2025 APERS Board Meeting Packet (JUL 25 E32 and E35) is expected to document the full Board roster and any Israel Bonds ratification action at the 6/11/2025 Board meeting. The Auditor's R2 Milligan production at [[auditor-foia-r2-milligan]] previously noted that Treasurer Thurston, DFA Secretary Hudson, and DLL Secretary Bassett are also APERS Trustees. This pending documentation will substantially expand this concept page. ## Evidence > [!evidence] APERS IFSC Agenda, IB_FOIA_MAY_25_Reviewed.pdf p.36, 5/15/2025 > "Investments and Finance Sub-Committee / Thursday, May 15, 2025, 1:00 p.m. / 124 West Capitol Avenue, Suite 400, Little Rock 72201 / Hybrid Meeting: Arkansas Public Employees' Retirement System Board Room and Video Conference / AGENDA / 1. Call to order and recognition of new subcommittee chair – Larry Walther / 2. Secondary Infrastructure – Carlos Borromeo, Deputy Director of Investments and Finance/CIO / 3. Private Credit / 4. Israel Bonds – Jason Brady / 5. New Business / 6. Old Business" > [!evidence] Amy Fecher to IFSC members, IB_FOIA_MAY_25_Reviewed.pdf p.35, 5/14/2025 9:12 AM > "To: Gary Wallace <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Daryl Bassett (ADLL) <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Jim Hudson <[email protected]>; [email protected] / Cc: Sharon Mahoney <[email protected]>; Anita Chance (ADLL) <[email protected]>; Wendy Spadoni <[email protected]>" > [!evidence] Carlos Borromeo to Laura Gilson, IB_FOIA_MAY_25_Reviewed.pdf p.623, 12/10/2024 11:30 AM > "since August 01, 2017, APERS/ASPRS/AJRS has made zero investments with the Development Company for Israel" ## Cross-References [[apers-foia-r1-7-7-25]] source page [[apers-israel-bonds-authorization]] [[callan-analysis-asymmetry]] concept pages [[atrs-board-governance-structure]] parallel ATRS concept page [[carlos-borromeo]] [[amy-fecher]] [[laura-gilson]] [[ashley-golleher]] [[brooke-hollowoa]] [[allison-woods]] [[richmond-giles]] [[patty-shipp]] [[jacobia-bates]] [[phillip-norton]] [[usha-doolabh]] APERS senior staff [[larry-walther]] [[gary-wallace]] [[jason-brady]] [[daryl-bassett]] [[carnahan-ifsc]] [[jim-hudson]] IFSC members [[sharon-mahoney]] [[anita-chance]] [[wendy-spadoni]] external-office staff cc on IFSC distribution [[auditor-foia-r2-milligan]] source page noting APERS Trustee participation by Hudson, Thurston, Bassett ## Chunk 2 (JUL 25 PDF) extension: full Board roster, ASPRS/AJRS structure The 7/7/25 APERS R1 production Chunk 2 substantially expands this concept page with the complete documented Board roster (from the 3/12/2025 APERS Board Meeting minutes captured in the 6/11/2025 Board packet) and the parallel ASPRS and AJRS Board structures. ### Full APERS Board roster (12 members, 3/12/2025 attendance) - **[[daryl-bassett]]** — Secretary of the Department of Labor and Licensing; **APERS Board Chair**, Sherwood, AR (also IFSC member) - **[[john-thurston]]** — Treasurer of State, Little Rock, AR - **[[larry-walther]]** — State Employee, Retiree, Little Rock, AR (also IFSC Chair) - **[[alan-mcvey]]** — DFA proxy - **[[barry-moehring]]** — Non-State Employee, County Judge, Bentonville, AR - **[[richard-wilson-apers]]** — Retired, Little Rock, AR - **[[carnahan-ifsc]]** — Non-State Employee, Hot Springs, AR (also IFSC member) - **[[joe-hurst]]** — Non-State Employee, Mayor, Van Buren, AR - **[[gary-wallace]]** — Retired Law Enforcement, Greenbrier, AR (also IFSC member) - **[[russell-white-apers]]** — Retired Law Enforcement, Alma, AR - **[[jason-brady]]** — State Auditor's Office, **proxy for [[dennis-milligan]]** (also IFSC member, where he is also explicitly designated "proxy" for Milligan) - **[[kaye-donham]]** — Retired, Benton, AR Plus on 6/11/2025 distribution: **[[dale-douthit]]** ([email protected], role TBD); **[[jim-hudson]]** (DFA Secretary, also IFSC member). The 6/11/2025 distribution adds Phillip Milligan (apparently distinct from Dennis Milligan; possibly the Arkansas State Police Director). ### IFSC composition (5/15/2025 attendance) - **[[larry-walther]]** — Chair (Retired Member) - **[[jim-hudson]]** — DFA Secretary (State Employee) - **[[jason-brady]]** — State Auditor's Office, **proxy** for Milligan - **[[gary-wallace]]** — Retired Law Enforcement - **[[carnahan-ifsc]]** — Non-State Employee, Hot Springs, AR [[daryl-bassett]] is on the IFSC roster but was absent from the 5/15/2025 IFSC meeting. ### APERS senior staff (May 15 IFSC minutes + Board minutes) - [[amy-fecher]] — Executive Director (501-682-7854) - [[carlos-borromeo]] — Deputy Director Investments & Finance / CIO (501-682-7864) - [[ashley-golleher]] — Deputy Director of Operations (501-682-7831) - [[allison-woods]] — **Deputy Director of Benefits** - [[jason-willett]] — **Chief Financial Officer** (501-683-5888) - [[laura-gilson]] — General Counsel (501-682-7853) - [[phillip-norton]] — **IT Director** (501-683-0995) - [[jacobia-bates]] — **Director of Public Affairs** - [[brooke-hollowoa]] — Director of Communications (501-682-5435) - [[patty-shipp]] — **Assurance Officer** - [[richmond-giles]] — **Staff Attorney / Legal Staff** - [[jon-aucoin]] — **Digital Services Manager** (501-683-6046) - [[usha-doolabh]] — **Investments Accounting Operations Manager** (501-682-7812) - Julianna Alamina — **Investment Analyst** - Daryl Bussell — **Information Systems Coordinator** - Meredith Kittler — Digital Services / financial reporting - Cheryl Wilburn — Benefits Operations Manager - Kristi Brown — Member Services Supervisor / Retirement Coordinator - Shelly George — Retirement Section Manager ### ASPRS Board (Arkansas State Police Retirement System, 3/13/2025 attendance) - **[[kyle-drown]]** — Captain, Chair, ASP Tier I - **Captain Scott Joe** — Vice Chair, ASP Tier II - **[[andy-babbitt]]** — DFA representative - **Denise Bugos** — Citizen at Large - **John Allison** — ASP Commissioner (absent) - **Donnie Underwood** — Citizen at Large (absent) - Plus 6/11/2025 distribution adds Phillip Milligan (likely ASP Director) ASPRS trust fund: $445.161M (end of Q4 2024). Per 3/13/2025 minutes: "APERS funds are co-invested with APERS." ASPRS did not separately deliberate on Israel Bonds at the 6/11/2025 Board meeting. ### AJRS Board (Arkansas Judicial Retirement System, 3/13/2025 attendance) - **[[herbert-wright]]** — Hon., Circuit Judge, Chair, North Little Rock - **Hon. Raymond Abramson** — AR Court of Appeals, Holly Grove - **Hon. Marcia Hearnsberger** — Circuit Judge, Hot Springs - **Hon. John Scott** — Circuit Judge, Bentonville - **Hon. Earnest Brown, Jr.** — Circuit Judge, Pine Bluff AJRS trust fund: $349.2M (end of Q4 2024). Co-invested with APERS. AJRS did not separately deliberate on Israel Bonds at the 6/12/2025 Board meeting. ### The 6/11/2025 APERS Board ratified the IFSC's Israel Bonds via consent agenda The 6/11/2025 APERS Board agenda item 4 is "Action Item: Approval of the Minutes for the March 12, 2025, Board Meeting (Page 3) and May 15, 2025, Investment Finance Subcommittee (Page 8)." Approval of the IFSC minutes by the full Board on 6/11 constitutes the Board's ratification of the IFSC's authorization. There is no separate Board-level Israel Bonds resolution. This procedural pathway differs materially from ATRS where Resolution 2025-22 was a separate Board action requiring an explicit roll-call vote. ## APERS R2 (2-27-26) production updates The 2-27-26 APERS R2 production extends this concept page with the IFSC chair-transition history, the new ex officio Trustees seated 9/10/2025, the recurring Auditor's-office visitor presence beyond Brady, and the structural finding that Israel Bonds disappears from APERS oversight after the 6/11/2025 ratification. ### IFSC chair transition: Bassett → Walther Per the 3/5/2025 IFSC minutes, Daryl Bassett was IFSC Chair at the meeting before Brady's pitch: "Secretary Daryl Bassett, Department of Labor and Licensing (State Employee), Chair of Investment Finance Sub-Committee." The agenda item 1 was "Call to order and recognition of new subcommittee chair – Chair Bassett." At the 5/15/2025 IFSC, Larry Walther presided as Chair: "Mr. Larry Walther, (Retired Member), Chair of Investment Finance Sub-Committee." The agenda item 1 was "Call to order and recognition of new subcommittee chair – Larry Walther." The IFSC chair therefore transitioned from Bassett (3/5) to Walther (5/15) in the period between these two meetings. Walther's tenure as Chair continued through 9/10/2025, 12/18/2025, and 2/3/2026 IFC meetings per minutes attendance. ### Brady-presides-by-delegation at 3/5/2025 IFSC Per the 3/5/2025 IFSC minutes, the substantive discussion was presided over by Brady, not Bassett: "Secretary Bassett asked Mr. Jason Brady to preside over this committee, in which he accepted." Brady then moved the substantive motion authorizing three core infrastructure managers (CBRE, IFM, J.P. Morgan), the StepStone secondary real estate manager, and the Blue Owl IPI Fund III investment. Wallace seconded; unanimous. The Brady-presides-by-Bassett-delegation pattern at 3/5 establishes the Auditor's-office Chief Deputy as a procedural principal at APERS IFSC meetings even when not the formal Chair. ### New ex officio APERS Trustees seated 9/10/2025 Per the 6/11/2025 Fecher Executive Report: "there will be two new Board members at the September meeting: Secretary of Transformation and Shared Services, Leslie Fisken, and Commissioner Susanna Marshall from the Arkansas State Bank Department." Per the 9/10/2025 Q3 Board minutes attendance roster, both Marshall and [[leslie-fisken]] were seated as ex officio Trustees at the 9/10 meeting. - **[[susannah-marshall]]** — Banking and Securities Department Commissioner. Statutory ex officio member of the ATRS Investment Committee per BP1 Section XII; now also ex officio APERS Trustee. Absent from all documented Israel Bonds correspondence in the wiki. Holds an ex officio seat on both pension boards documenting Israel Bonds investments. - **[[leslie-fisken]]** — Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Shared Administrative Services (alternately titled "Secretary of Transformation and Shared Services" per the 6/11 Fecher framing). New ex officio Trustee. Procedurally active immediately upon seating: seconded the 9/10 Walther motion to adopt 7/22/2025 MAC minutes and the 9/10 IFC minutes. The full APERS Board roster after 9/10/2025 expanded from 12 to 14 elected/ex-officio trustees (depending on the exact count). Per the 9/10 minutes: Bassett (Chair), Thurston, Walther, Hudson, Carnahan, Wallace, Russell White, Brady (proxy for Milligan), Douthit, Fisken, Marshall, Donham (remote), Hurst (remote), Moehring (remote). ### Recurring Auditor's-office visitor presence beyond Brady The R2 production documents [[andy-babbitt]] as a recurring visitor at APERS meetings post-Israel-Bonds-authorization: 6/11/2025 Q2 Board, 9/10/2025 IFSC, and 9/10/2025 Q3 Board. Babbitt's specific Auditor's-office role is not documented in this batch. His presence in parallel with Brady (the Auditor's office Board proxy for Milligan) establishes a multi-person Auditor's-office institutional presence at APERS meetings rather than the Brady-only pattern the wiki's R1 framing suggested. ### Bank OZK presence at APERS Board meetings [[dan-rolett]] (Bank OZK) attended the 6/11/2025 Q2 Board as a visitor. [[eric-munson]] attended the 9/10/2025 Q3 Board explicitly attributed to "Bank OZK" — confirming Munson's documented Treasury R2 Sub-batch 1 transition from Chief Deputy Treasurer to Bank OZK. The Bank OZK presence at APERS Board meetings in the post-authorization period is institutional, not personal. ### New APERS investment analysts documented Per the 6/11/2025 Q2 Board APERS Staff attendance roster, three APERS Investment Analysts are documented: Julianna Alamina (already present at 3/5 and 5/15 IFSC meetings), **Rebecca Walton**, and **Ronda Summers**. Per the 6/11 staff list also: Bryan Taylor (Retirement Counselor), Cheryl Wilburn (Retirement Section Manager), Stacie Jackson (Administrative Specialist III), Cheryl Miles (Admin Spec III), Chin Ku (Accountant II), Meredith Kittler (Admin Spec III), Linda McGrath (Admin Specialist). ### External actuarial consultant Per the 9/10/2025 Q3 Board and 12/3/2025 Q4 Board agenda, **[[mita-drazilov]] and [[heidi-barry]] of Gabriel, Roeder & Smith (GRS)** are APERS's external actuarial consultant. GRS computes the employer contribution rate and provides the actuarial valuation supporting APERS funded ratio. ### External real estate consultant Per the 2/3/2026 IFC agenda, **[[ted-dickey]]** is the APERS Real Estate Consultant, supporting Fecher on the Hudson-initiated real estate working group. ### Structural finding: post-vote disappearance of Israel Bonds from IFSC and Board agendas See [[apers-israel-bonds-authorization]] and [[callan-analysis-asymmetry]] for the structural finding that Israel Bonds disappears from APERS Investment Committee and Board oversight after the 6/11/2025 consent-agenda ratification across the five subsequent meetings documented in this production (9/10 IFSC, 9/10 Q3 Board, 12/3 Q4 Board, 12/18 IFC, 2/3/26 IFC). [[apers-foia-r2-2-27-26]] source page ## Tensions This concept page is documentary-inventory and surfaces no first-class tensions. It catalogs the enumerated APERS Board of Trustees roster, the Investment Finance Subcommittee membership and chair-transition history, the parallel ASPRS and AJRS board structures, the APERS senior-staff org chart, the ex-officio Trustee additions of 9/10/2025 (Marshall, Fisken), and the 6/11/2025 consent-agenda ratification mechanism. Contested mechanisms surfaced by APERS Board governance — the operational standing of the 5/15 IFSC motion under the post-vote delegation framework, the motion-making sequence at the 5/15 IFSC, and the role of the Auditor's-office channel — are filed against [[apers-israel-bonds-authorization]] at [[T020 - Brady IFSC Motion Mechanism]] and [[T021 - APERS $15M Purchase Below IFSC $25M Floor]]. See [[methodology]] § II for the criteria distinguishing documentary-inventory pages from concept pages that surface contested mechanisms.