COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has filed a lawsuit to remove two members of the retired teachers' pension fund, stating they are participating in a contract steering"scheme" that could directly benefit them. However, the AG stops short of detailing the alleged"backdoor ties" between the men and an"illegitimate" investment firm.
STRS lost $5.3 billion in 2022 alone. In 2023, it lost $27 million invested in the failed Silicon Valley Bank. In addition to those — the cost of living adjustments, or COLAs, were suspended for more than 150,000 retired Ohio teachers for five years starting in 2017. In 2012, the qualifying retirement number was moved from 30 years to 35 years. Last year, this was changed to 34. Then, the board approved $10 million in bonuses for their staff.
I tried to look at Ohio Checkbook, the state-run site that shows how much public employees make, but the resource was not functioning properly. However, ORTA had captured data, which showed that STRS Chief Investment Officer Matthew Worley had an annual salary of about $466,000 as of September 2023.The"STRS status quo" perspective on investments
In May 2023, STRS approved a 1% COLA to eligible retirees. Retirees can start receiving a COLA on their fifth anniversary of retirement. The documents claim that they — despite having no clients and no track record — tried to convince STRS members to partner with them. The concerns came from documents given to Gov. Mike DeWine's office. The governor's spokesperson, Dan Tierney, told me that an STRS staff member hand-delivered the documents. The office believes numerous whistleblowers wrote the 14-page memo, also including about a dozen other documents in an attempt to verify their allegations. As this was happening, DeWine found out that STRS' consulting firm Aon had cut ties with them.
"Now we have a super majority, and now we can get all the information we need that they've been covering up or not being transparent about," Cleveland-area teacher Terry Caskey said. The documents say that once former board members rejected QED's request for $65 billion, the firm joined forces with ORTA and Save Ohio STRS to “replace board members and staff with those who would support their proposal.”
Rayfield denied the allegations that ORTA was involved with SOS or QED in campaigning. It is unknown if QED campaigned. He checked with his board, and they"unanimously said, 'Absolutely, let's see if we can raise money.'" They ended up raising at least $40,000, but Rayfield said it could be $60,000. He has shook hands with Curtis and exchanged pleasantries but never worked together, he said. However, he is more concerned about being associated with QED.
The bribe money came in the form of campaign contributions, dark money donations, that are nearly impossible to track due to Ohio's lax campaign finance disclosure laws.In an act of defiance, the reformers removed STRS chair Dale Price, who was on the status quo side, and replaced him with Fichtenbaum.