Paul Boyer to Speaker Jon Husted re: HB 151

Rev. Paul L. Boyer

(Address, etc.)

URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT

Dear Honorable Jon Husted, Speaker of the House:

I am greatly disturbed over two bills, HB 151 and HB 152, which are bing pushed in the House under your leadership.

Have you read ORC. 3307.15 recently. In case you have not, let me refresh your memory.

ORC 3307:15 SAYS:

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, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with these matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims; and by diversifying the investments of the system so as to minimize the risk of large losses, unless under

the circumstances it is clearly prudent not to do so.

The Ohio State Legislature has absolutely no business passing these two bills because in so doing, they are putting the boards of these state retirement systems in a position where they will violate their duties as fiduciaries and prudently handling the moneys entrusted to them. As a retired teacher and member of STRS, I have spent thousands of hours and innumerable trips to Columbus STRS meetings in the past four years to counteract the profligate spending of the preceding Executive Director and Board members. Due to our efforts, some of these people have been tried and convicted in the Columbus courts for ethics violations.

These two bills, if adhered to by the boards, could put current board members in violation of the ethics standards. Remember also that this money does not belong to the state; it belongs to active and retired teachers who have had withdrawals from their salaries to fund their retirement. And please do not tell me that the amount the schools pay into the retirement funds is state money. It may come from the state but it is part of the salary package that all school teachers negotiate with their boards.

HB 151 is mandating that these boards divest themselves of all investments in companies doing business in Iran and other countries. All of the companies that STRS would have to sell off are multinational companies that are doing business in many countries and Iran may be the smallest of their operations.

It will cost STRS and other systems millions of dollars to sell off these investments and millions in the loss of earnings in the future.

STRS does most of their investing by in-house councilors and in recent years they have raised the value of their investments from a low of $55 billion after the stock market downturn to the latest figure of $77 billion that was reported to us.

In this morning's paper you are offering to drop the bill if the systems voluntarily do away with half of their targets investments. MR. HUSTED, THIS IS NOTHING SHORT OF BLACKMAIL. I IMPLORE YOU TO IMMEDIATELY STOP THIS BILL IN ITS TRACKS.

I will speak briefly at this time of HB 152 . The same arguments apply to it as I have already given. If teachers are given the opportunity of taking on a retirement fund different from STRS, it will be disastrous. Current retired teachers and active ones could find the STRS bankrupt in ensuing years.

Thank you for your attention

Rev. Paul L. Boyer