The state pension fund for volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders holds a special meeting Sept. 17 with a single item of business: authorizing and paying for a 2027 actuarial report. The agenda does not say which of three kinds of report it means.
The distinction matters because of what changed last year. Until Sept. 1, 2025, state law capped what Texas put into the fund at a third of what participating cities and counties paid in. A 2025 law struck the cap and requires the state instead to pay whatever an actuary calculates is needed to retire the fund’s oldest debt by 2055. The state’s share rose from about $1.29 million a year, the amount appropriated in each of the two preceding years, to $3.3 million for the two years that began in September 2025 and $3.79 million for the two after that. An actuary’s report is what produces those figures.
The fund is small. It covers about 3,300 active volunteers and 4,065 retirees and survivors across 238 departments, holding $152.3 million against $200.9 million in promised benefits — 74.1 percent funded, a point better than a year earlier, with $52.1 million unfunded. The average annual benefit is $2,306. Departments staffed by unpaid responders may choose to join; the city or county then pays a monthly amount for each member, and the members pay nothing themselves.
What the board is buying is not clear from the agenda. State law requires the system to certify its soundness every two years, and separately to audit that valuation and re-examine its own assumptions at least every five years. The most recent actuarial audit posted on the system’s website is from 2020. Its publications page lists a valuation and an experience study as different documents; the September agenda names neither.
The board has also left its August business unreported. It has posted no minutes for the Aug. 24 meeting at which it elected officers and took up three rule changes, including a definition of fraud, and no proposed rule of its own has reached the Texas Register since. Five of the nine trustees had been appointed or reappointed three weeks before that meeting. Watch whether the September meeting says plainly which report it just bought.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:30 a.m. CT Thursday, September 17, 2026. The notice, TRD 2026005347, was filed September 8 at 11 a.m. This is a special meeting; the next regular one is set for November 19.
- Where
- North Lamar Blvd. Building, Conference Room Suite 390, 4800 N. Lamar Blvd., Austin, with a public Zoom link on the agenda.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Emergency Services Retirement System — nine trustees the governor appoints: five active members, one retiree and three with finance or pension experience. Jerry Romero was chairman going into the August meeting.
- Format
- In person and by videoconference; the presiding trustee attends in person. Public comment comes second on a four-item agenda.
- Live video
- No video archive. Meetings are recorded as audio and posted at tesrs.org, with copies also available on request.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · board meetings page
Board of trustees
- Jerry Romero — chairman; El Paso; finance seat; reappointed August 2026.
- Matthew Glaves — vice chair; Alvin; retiree seat; reappointed August 2026.
- Rupal Chaudhari — secretary; Leander; financial expert seat.
- Chris Anderson — Santa Fe; fire chief; appointed August 2026.
- Matt Hohon — Granbury; fire chief; appointed August 2026.
- Edward J. Keenan — Houston; firefighter seat.
- Lindsay Price — Seabrook; towing captain and EMT; appointed August 2026.
- Rodney Alan Ryalls — Burkburnett; firefighter seat.
- Brian Smith — Austin; investment professional seat.
Roster from the system’s trustees page, checked against the governor’s August 5, 2026 appointment release. Officer titles are those held going into the August 24 meeting, at which officers were up for election; the outcome has not been published, and the trustee page has carried the same three names since at least May. State law sets six-year staggered terms; the system’s own website says four years, which is wrong. A new trustee may not vote until required training is complete. Executive director: Jessica Almaguer. Phone: (512) 936-3422.