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From John Curry, March 17, 2009
"While the pension can't match Wall Street salaries, it needs to stay competitive to attract and retain top talent, she said." (STRS "spokeswoman" Laura Ecklar - Columbus Dispatch - March 16, 2009)

"...to attract and retain top talent?" Well, Laura, there are thousands of unemployed Wall St. investors who would just love to work at Ohio STRS AND draw an OPERS retirement with OPERS bennies (including affordable healthcare rates for themselves and their spouses), wouldn't they?
…but the board minutes from March of 2008, then again from September of 2008, show that Dr. Leone told the board members how wrong they were to adopt the bonus plan and eventually approve bonus payments. They felt they knew better!

Investment officers for teachers' pension system reap boosts in base pay

Raises took effect months before bonus policy tempered in response to outrage

Monday, March 16, 2009
By James Nash
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Although dozens of investment officers for the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio will see their bonuses slashed because of the recession, some are making up part of the difference with higher base pay.

The pension system serving 458,500 current or retired teachers boosted the base pay of investment officers by as much as $39,500 last year, putting two of them over the $300,000 mark.

Early this year, the pension's board voted to sharply reduce annual performance bonuses in down years and increase them in boom years. The move came after pressure from retired teachers outraged over six-figure bonus checks awarded to 21 investment officers in 2008, even as pension investments foundered in a tough economic climate.

Some retired teachers now say that the increases in base pay -- though they took effect months before the new policy on bonuses -- represent another slap to working-class retirees.

"It's just very difficult when seniors are splitting medications and dropping medications," said Molly Janczyk, a retired Columbus teacher who is active in retiree circles. "Even the superintendent of Columbus public schools turned down a raise. Where's the sensitivity?"

In April 2008, the board of the State Teachers Retirement System approved raises for 89 investment officers averaging 6.1 percent. The raises took effect in July. The top raises went to the two assistant directors of investments, who gained $39,500 on top of their $270,000 base salaries. That's an increase of nearly 15 percent.

Both also got bonuses of more than $250,000.

Officials from the teachers' pension system expect to complete their 2009-10 budget next month, but it will not include raises, as the pension board voted to freeze employee salaries in February.

The State Teachers Retirement System tries to pay its investment officers so that they earn as much as at least a quarter of their peers in public and private investment houses around the country, pension spokeswoman Laura Ecklar said. While the pension can't match Wall Street salaries, it needs to stay competitive to attract and retain top talent, she said.

Ecklar said that when the pension board boosted salaries, it did not know that, months later, it would pare back bonuses.

"This is not something that was done to circumvent the changes in the (bonus) program at all," she said.

jnash@dispatch.com