ORTA established the Pension Defense Fund to ensure it has the legal and professional resources necessary to continue its fight for pro-teacher policies and the reinstatement of pro-reform STRS board member Wade Steen.
In a huge victory for teachers this week, an Ohio court made a preliminary finding that pro-teacher board member Wade Steen should be reinstated to the STRS board. The magistrate determined Mr. Steen was wrongfully removed by the Governor last year. However, this victory was short lived because it appears the Governor has a hidden motive. Despite the Tenth District Court of Appeals findings, the Governor's office decided to brazenly interfere with the court.
After the Tenth District’s Courts finding, Brent Bishop resigned from the seat from which he was wrongfully appointed. Ignoring the court’s findings, the Governor boldly decided to usurp the power of the courts and the will of the people and wrongfully appoint yet another person, Brian Perera. ORTA will not stand by and watch one man’s hidden agenda stand in the way of bringing transparency and accountability to our pension system.
STRS is broken. Help us fight back by supporting board members like Wade Steen who are trying to fix it.
STRS Ohio Watchdogs
Chew on this!
"Pension Fight Club refers to the many individuals who have made their voices heard about the excessive amount of public pension money being sent to Wall Street investors and hedge fund managers without proper oversight. Without that oversight, members who contributed significant portions of their salaries toward their retirement for decades are being left financially vulnerable." - Dean Dennis
Retirement at Risk: The Political Economy of Public Pension Governance
We encourage everyone to read Retirement at Risk: The Political Economy of Public Pension Governance.
Throughout their report, Allen Mendenhall (Heritage Foundation) and Dan Sutter (Troy University) focus on STRS Ohio's use of CPA audited investment returns versus unaudited, reported, and self-reported returns.
"Audited investment returns are subject to professional standards and legal liability while reported returns are not."
Mendenhall and Sutter make many powerful statements in their report. We will be sharing them with you. Here's one.
"STRS’s reported investment returns are not subject to CPA examination. These figures, therefore, operate outside the formal enforcement mechanisms that discipline audited financial reporting. And importantly, the reported investment returns are used for evaluating performance and determining bonus compensation. From a principal-agent perspective, this distinction is critical: tying compensation and reputational benefits to unaudited metrics invites opportunistic behavior."
Read the report at https://jnf.ufm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=journal
Pension Fight Club
Pension Fight Club is an investigative documentary by awardwinning filmmaker Doug Orchard that provides a national examination of the systemic financial risks and lack of transparency currently facing public retirement funds, including the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (STRS Ohio).
-
Click on the Purchase to Watch button.
-
Pay $9.00. After you purchase the film, you can watch it as many time as you want to. After you pay for the film, the Join button will turn into "Stream Now".
-
If you have difficulty paying for or streaming the film, use the contact form on the website to ask for help
-
Invite your colleagues for a movie night.
-
Share the link with your colleagues. They can watch the trailer at https://pensionfightclub.com
Who's in the film? You'll see Ohio teachers Trina Prufer, Robin Rayfield, Dean Dennis, and Rudy Fichtenbaum. Also in the film are John Damschroeder, Chris Tobe, and Ted Siedle. Long time members of the Watchdogs will recognize these names.
Judge grants preliminary injunction in lawsuit over Ohio teachers retirement system
On October 15th, the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas issued a preliminary injunction preventing changes to the composition of the STRS Board while litigation is in progress.
ORTA wishes to thank the organizations and individuals who have engaged in our fight to retain elected teachers on the STRS Ohio Retirement Board.
The Ohio Federation of Teachers, Ohio Education Association, and Ohio Conference of American Association of University Professors funded the injunction to stop the removal of elected teachers to the STRS Ohio Board. They released this statement:
“We are thankful for Judge Aveni’s ruling to grant a preliminary injunction. This determination confirms what retired and active members of STRS have known since June: this is an unconstitutional power grab by the legislature. Educators, just like all other public employees in Ohio, deserve a meaningful voice in our pension plan.” — Statement from OEA President Jeff Wensing, OFT President Melissa Cropper, and OC AAUP Executive Director Sara Kilpatrick.
Colleen Marshall, NBC4 Columbus, has reported factually and without bias on STRS Ohio since the Governor's failed attempt to remove Wade Steen from the STRS Board in May 2023. Watch her report on Judge Aveni's decision to support the preliminary injunction.
David Pepper has dedicated many of his Substack articles to the state's ongoing attack on members of the STRS Ohio Board.
"I have detailed the saga of how Ohio’s always lawless lawmakers have spent years attempting to steal the power of teachers and retirees over their own ($100B) pension fund. And how a number of their attacks have been in clear violation of Ohio law and the constitution." - David Pepper
And above all, we want to thank all of Ohio's teachers who contacted their legislators, asking them not to support this attempt by a small group of politicians to remove democratically elected members from our pension Board.
The CommonSense 401(k) Project
Chris Tobe is widely known as a pension consultant and whistleblower who analyzes public retirement system management, transparency, and investment fees. The mission of the “The CommonSense 401(k) Project” is to break down the walls of misinformation and mismanagement that create unnecessary risk and underperformance for both pension plan participants and plan sponsors. The dramatic increase in both 401(k) and 403(b) litigation, and the resulting judgments and settlements in favor of plan participants, indicate both the current problems within and the need for change in the quality of America’s pension plans.
Pension Warriors
"I am America's leading forensic expert investigating pension and retirement plan abuses. My mission is to prepare you to fight to protect the pension you were promised." - Edward Siedle
Pension Warriors focuses on providing forensic insights to subscribers about pension and retirement plan abuses. Our goal is to explain mismanagement and wrongdoing in a manner that is both understandable and actionable. We don’t want to scare you—we want to prepare you to fight to protect your retirement security, i.e., to ensure that promises made are indeed, kept.
Kathie Bracy's Blog
Kathie Bracy’s Blog is a forum for Ohio educators, sharing thoughts regarding their health care and pension system, STRS Ohio. Kathie’s blog is a virtual repository of STRS Ohio history since 2003. Many of the documents and articles featured in Kathie’s blog are contributed by John Curry, who manages a clearinghouse of emails, documents, and articles about STRS Ohio.
A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Baylor University School of Music, Kathie is a professional symphony musician by background. She is also a retired elementary classroom teacher (nonmusic), having taught in the Alliance (OH) City Schools 2-1/2 years and the Columbus Public Schools 30 years. Kathie's first job was as harp instructor at The University of Texas; currently she is a Lecturer in Harp at The University of Mount Union. As a retired educator and a life member of a number of professional organizations, including the Ohio Retirement for Teachers Association and the Ohio Education Association-Retired, she also worked with the Concerned Ohio Retired Educators (CORE) which officially disbanded in 2012, to help bring about badly needed reform in our teachers retirement system, STRS Ohio.
Ohio STRS Member Only Forum
The MOF was started in 2017 by Joe Lupo, a retired public school adminstrator, after the suspension of the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) by STRS Ohio. The MOF has over 35,000 members, active and retired teachers who are members of the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio. The MOF was instumental in electing the past five members to the STRS Ohio Retirement Board. The MOF Facebook group is a dynamic discussion about all things related to STRS Ohio and Ohio teachers' retirement benefits. Many of the documents and articles featured in the MOF are posted by John Curry, who manages a clearinghouse of emails, documents, and articles about STRS Ohio.