STRS FLASHBACK - 6 Years Ago - I want my bonus back!

From John Curry, May 22, 2010

Canton Repository, May 29, 2004

Five STRS employees sue to get back their bonuses

By PAUL E. KOSTYU
Copley Columbus Bureau chief

COLUMBUS — Five employees have sued the State Teachers Retirement System seeking the bonuses they were denied by the pension board last week.

The employees filed the suit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court late Friday asking for class-action status for 268 noninvestment staff eligible for the $1.8 million in bonuses ranging from $416 to $46,574.

The documents filed by Columbus attorney Michael R. Szolosi Sr. appear to ignore Cassandra Hill, a teacher in the STRS Day Care Center whose bonus was to be $174, even though she appears in the appendix filed with the lawsuit. In fact, the appendix lists investment staff and the bonuses they received even though they are not a party to the suit.

Included among the 268 employees are two deputy executive directors, Robert A. Slater, with a bonus worth $46,573, and Sandra L. Knoesel, $43,324, and the board’s executive assistant, Eileen Boles, $6,427.

Repeated attempts to reach retirement system spokeswoman Laura Ecklar for comment about whether she and others would join the suit were not returned. Her bonus was listed at $15,204.

The suit asks for an unspecified amount of punitive damages and attorney fees. The suit seeks temporary and permanent injunctions to prevent the retirement system from using the money set aside for the bonuses for other purposes.

Reached in Chicago, Executive Director Damon Asbury said he knew some employees were talking about filing a lawsuit.

“This was not unexpected,” he said. “We will turn it over to the attorney general to look at and advise us on our next step.”

Kim Norris, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jim Petro, said the case “is winnable because of the financial condition of the funds” at the time the bonus plan was in effect.

The bonuses were to be awarded to noninvestment employees for work done in the 2002-03 fiscal year. In the aftermath of media reports about questionable spending at the retirement system, the bonuses were suspended last year. The retirement system board voted 5-4 on May 20 not to pay the bonuses to noninvestment employees and unanimously terminated the program. Bonuses were awarded to investment staff, however.

At the meeting, Asbury and Assistant Attorney General John E. Patterson, who is the board’s attorney, recommended that the bonuses be paid. Both predicted a lawsuit would be filed and that the retirement system would lose if the bonuses were not paid.

Petro, however, instructed his representative on the board to vote against the bonus plan because he said it wasn’t in the best interest of the pension system.

The employees bringing the suit are Thomas P. Scott of Mount Vernon, Marvin L. Moore of Columbus, Donald E. Van Loon Jr. of Delaware, Dwayne T. Lane of Canal Winchester and Carmen Fenton of West Jefferson.

Scott, who works in the information technology section at the retirement system according to Asbury, has an annual salary of $98,310. He was scheduled to receive a $15,729 bonus.

The annual salary, job and bonus of the other four are: Moore, a retired computer specialist, $60,560 and $5,632; Van Loon, Web developer, $81,610 and $12,155; Lane, Web developer, $79,420 and $7,433; and Fenton, tax coordinator, $52,150 and $2,033.

The suit accuses the board of acting arbitrarily and in bad faith by giving bonuses to some employees and not others when many of those receiving the money had similar jobs to those who did not. It also said lack of the bonus will affect employee retirement benefits, which are based on the average of the final three years of pay.

The suit also accuses the system and board of arbitrarily setting a lower figure for calculating how much the bonuses should be. The maximum bonus was set at 80 percent instead of 100 percent. The plaintiffs said the retirement system broke its contract with employees because a performance-based incentive plan was in place in 2002-03, which was to be paid in September 2003.