The State Teachers Retirement System Board of Trustees had a telling debate over their governing policies at the Nov. 17th meeting. STRS has what they call a “one-voice policy,” that would be more fittingly labeled a membership muzzle plan.
STRS was attempting to get buy-in to a no-dissent policy from newly elected members not to take policy disagreements beyond board discussions. Once a vote is taken, STRS wants all members to publicly support whatever policy decision is made. The state legislature’s pension oversight body, the Ohio Retirement Study Council, works to indoctrinate pension board members with the same one-voice counsel in a mandatory orientation program required before a trustee can join the board.
It would be unthinkable that strongly opposed lawmakers or justices of a multijurist court could be pressured to speak with one voice in support of a decision they opposed. Dissenting opinions in judicial decisions or legislative debates often prompts change in the public’s point of view. A fiduciary that would stifle personal conviction on a policy decision to comply with a governing principal is out of step with a legal and moral obligation inherent in that status. The state’s orientation program coaching one voice as a best practice is an outrage given the abysmal performance of Ohio’s pension system.
At STRS, the dissent centers on $10 million bonuses paid to in-house investment staff, despite losses of over $5 billion. The bonuses were paid while the Auditor of State’s Special Investigation Unit probed an allegation from dissident board members that STRS has literally under-reported investment expenses to qualify for bonuses.
Ohio’s pension policy pushes one voice to maintain trust in the largest public retirement plan that foregoes Social Security and puts total reliance on the state system. But Ohio’s performance has earned nothing but distrust, meaning the pension board dissidents are not troublemakers, they’re truth tellers.
First Published November 20, 2022, 5:00 a.m.
