Paul Boyer to Mark Meuser: It's YOUR DUTY to know what they are doing

Paul Boyer to Mark Meuser, October 23, 2006

Subject: letter

With all respect to the amount of time that you have spent reading books about pension board protocol, you have totally missed the point. The point is that the STRS staff from Damon on down still seem to have the "me, too" mentality that was there before Dennis Leone did his research and published his paper.

They have done not much of anything to gain our trust in the past three years. Witness the fact that we were assured in the CORE/Damon Committee, of which I was chairman for some time, he told us that all credit cards had been retrieved and now he says that there were still about six who still had them, since retrieved hopefully. Witness also items on expense accounts by board members for staying a second night after conference and paid personal calls ho, me. We were never allowed to turn in such expenses when teaching and attending meetings.

Had Dennis not insisted on seeing these before voting on them, the board and we would never have known of them/ We in no way are suggesting that the board negotiate contracts, only that they have some idea of what is contained in them before voting on them. I find it incredible, also, that you say that many boards never vote on contracts. You can not fulfill your fiduciary duties if you do not vote on these large sums.

When the board was asked to vote on the final settlement from the lawsuit of employees for their bonus, they had nothing in writing and found out later that something was inserted later which cost a lot more money.

'Nough said, Mark. Please wake up and realize that you have a strong fiduciary duty to know what the staff and director are actually doing.

Paul L. Boyer