Paul Boyer's letter in the Lima News, November 4, 2006 re: election

From Paul Boyer, November 4, 2006

Dear Editor:

Election Day is less than two weeks away and all registered voters in Ohio have an opportunity to support all public school teachers, active and retired. The name Betty Montgomery will appear on the ballot for Attorney General.

Let me give you a little information on the actions of this woman as both auditor and attorney general. For many years, state law mandated that both the attorney general and the auditor were members of all of the state retirement boards. These state officers rarely, if ever, actually attended the board meetings but send one of their deputies. Retired teachers, members of CORE, Concerned Ohio Retired Educators, persuaded the legislature to remove these state officers from the boards.

During the tenure of Mrs. Montgomery and Mr. Petro, the State Teachers Retirement Board Executive Director and Board members, along with many of the employees, drifted into an entitlement philosophy and spent millions of dollars on themselves and a monstrosity of a building and art work instead of using the money for retirees.

Ohio Revised Code 3307.15 states

“The board and other fiduciaries shall discharge their duties with respect to the funds "solely" in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries; for the "exclusive" purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries and defraying reasonable expenses of administering the system; with care, skill, prudence….”

In the budget bill a couple of years ago, we were successful in persuading the legislators to put in a line authorizing the Inspector General to investigate the board. It has been reported to us that both Mr. Petro and Mrs. Montgomery went to the governor and asked him to line-item veto that because they were members of the board. When later we asked these two directly to launch an investigation, we were told that that would be a conflict of interest.

The greatest scandal ever to hit Ohio, the NOE Coin collector scandal, an audit was made which showed errors and Mrs. Montgomery OK’ed it.

Now, I ask you, do we want this person to be our attorney General? Absolutely not.

Sincerely,

Paul L. Boyer