The mission and overriding purpose of the Alabama Retires State Employees’ Association (ARSEA) and Alabama Public Employees’ Advocacy League (APEAL) is to protect and improve retirement resources of state, county, city and local public board retirees and their survivors.
ARSEA was formed as an advocate for a strong, stable, solvent retirement system with adequate retirement benefits for state retirees. It has become Alabama’s leading organization for those who have retired from state and local government.
ARSEA/APEAL serves its more than 17,000 members through legislation, information, representation, advocacy, education and community services provided by a professional staff, board members, and experienced network of local leaders and organized chapter activities.
ARSEA/APEAL is governed by a voluntary Board of Directors, all retired from public service and elected by the membership. Headquartered in Montgomery, ARSEA’s staff, led by Executive Director Liane Kelly, works on a constantly expanding number of member services, issues, legislative programs, special events and publications.
To achieve our mission and continue our excellent level of achievements, ARSEA/APEAL priorities are:
1. Increases
Cost-of-Living raises and Bonuses as adequately and frequently as possible, with an emphasis on developing a more reliable and equitable manner to fund these COLAs for state, county, city and public board retirees and their beneficiaries.
2. Health Insurance
Continue our efforts to provide basic, affordable health insurance benefits for state and local public retirees and their primary survivors.
3. Taxes
Resist every effort by the Alabama Legislature or other elected officials to tax retirement resources and to protect tax exemptions for public retirees.
4. Protection
Protect the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) and the State Employees’ Insurance Board (SEIB) with legislation to prohibit raids and borrowing of state retirement and insurance funds.
Provide retiree representation with 2 elected retiree members on the Employees’ Retirement System Board of Control and on the State Employees’ (Health) Insurance Board (SEIB) and representation on the Local Government Health Insurance Plan Board (LGHIP).