Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - The story of Dr. David Bronner, RSA, and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Courses

  Dr. David Bronner has marked his place in Alabama political and governmental history. He has headed the revered Retirement Systems of Alabama Pension Funds for 45 years. When Bronner took his present job with RSA, the Retirement Systems had approximately $500 million of funds. Today RSA has approximately $40 billion in investments, making our RSA the 50th largest public pension fund in the world.

A good solution to Alabama's "Tier 2" retirement system

  Unintended consequences are a common problem when it comes to making laws and government policy. A good example of this is the changes lawmakers made in 2012 to the retirement systems for education and state employees in Alabama.

  The economic recession that began in 2008 had severely hurt the Retirement Systems of Alabama’s investments. The slowness of the recovery made things worse, and the state was looking at a situation where, in the long run, the government wouldn’t have the money to pay education and state employee retirees the benefits they had earned.

Darrio Melton: Paving the Black Belt's road to success

  It’s no secret that the Black Belt is behind the times. Just take a drive south of Montgomery and you’ll experience a time and place very different than the rest of Alabama. Families find ways to get by with little means, businesses struggle to provide sustainability for the community, the roads and bridges are dilapidated, and many of the communities look as if they’re stuck in time.

  Many people have wondered for a long time what we can do to help the Black Belt, including myself. Requests to the governor to bring more industry into the area have fallen on deaf ears. Pleas with the legislature to fully fund education for every child have been repeatedly voted down, and attempts to expand I-85 all the way across to Jackson have been fruitless.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: A few things Alabama's doing well

  Alabama may be in the lower tier of the country in some categories but not when it comes to providing health insurance for children. In that one category we excel.

  Brian Lyman with the Montgomery Advertiser provided an excellent study revealing that Alabama leads the south in taking care of its young people when it comes to giving them health coverage. A recent Georgetown University study showed that Alabama leads the south when it comes to healthcare for children. Remarkably we are ranked in the top 10 states in America.

Cameron Smith: Pension reform will protect state retirees and our financial future

  In January, the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) released its Comprehensive Annual Financial Reform (PDF) for the 2013 fiscal year. The report was received with little fanfare. During an election year, no politician wants to run afoul of the RSA and the billions it invests in Alabama.

  Unfortunately, this head-in-the-sand approach to public pension accountability is not working, and it will have painful consequences for Alabama’s future. While state politicians have made needed adjustments to the state retirement system over the last several years, they have left the defined benefit structure of the RSA intact.

Scott Beaulier, Cameron Smith: Smoke, mirrors and the RSA

  Most Alabamians know that The Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) manages Alabama’s state pension funds. But recently the RSA commissioned a study by Dr. M. Keivan Deravi of Auburn University Montgomery to demonstrate the impact of RSA’s investments in Alabama, particularly the “alternative investments” ranging from golf courses to media outlets.

  According to Dr. Deravi, the RSA has invested an inflation-adjusted $5.6 billion in Alabama’s economy from 1990-2011, and RSA investments in Alabama produced $1.1 billion of additional tax revenue to the State of Alabama over the same time period. Dr. Deravi contrasts the tax revenues on Alabama investments with the $542 million the RSA would have likely earned on $5.6 billion in bond and equity investments.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: The RSA effect

  Alabama may be on the lower end of the financial spectrum when it comes to the per capita income of our population. However, our public employees have one of the most sound retirement programs in the nation. One group of state employees, our judges, have what is probably one of the most lucrative retirement programs in the entire country.

  The benefits accrued by members of our judiciary are nothing less than amazing. The judges can thank the late Supreme Court Chief Justice and U.S. Senator Howell Heflin for spearheading an effort to streamline and update our judicial system in the 1970s. This Judicial Article not only upgraded the court system and judicial compensation, it created unparalleled retirement benefits.