Cleveland.com: Gov. Mike DeWine removes retirement board member amid teachers pension fight
Cleveland.com
May 8, 2023
Gov. Mike DeWine removes retirement board member amid teachers pension fight
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Gov. Mike DeWine has removed his appointee to the State Teachers Retirement System board – a member who challenged the pension’s managers – a day before the announcement of another reform-minded board member.
Wade Steen, a former Cuyahoga County fiscal officer, said a member of DeWine’s staff on Friday asked him to resign. Steen refused, and then the staff member told him his appointment was revoked. Steen served on the board for seven years.
Meantime, another candidate who promises to be a reformer – Pat Davidson, a Berea City School District teacher– defeated incumbent STRS board member and Portsmouth City Schools teacher Arthur Lard for a board seat, according to election results announced by the Ohio Federation of Teachers.
Davidson, who was supported by the Ohio Federation of Teachers, received 20,410 to Lard’s 8,853. The Ohio Education Association supported Lard, whose term ends Aug. 31.
The STRS board has 11 voting members – including five active teachers and two retired teachers who are elected, the Ohio superintendent of public instruction or her appointee, and one member each appointed by the governor, by the Ohio treasurer and jointly by the Ohio House speaker and Ohio Senate president.
A group of retired teachers, now called the Ohio Retirement for Teachers Association and formerly the Ohio Retired Teachers Association, have pushed back against pension austerity measures that included low cost-of-living increases and no increases between 2017 and 2022.
In August, the board is expected to award an estimated $11.1 milliion in bonuses to 91 STRS investment department staff, while there’s no resolution ready for a vote on giving retirees a cost-of-living increase after a year of high inflation.
The retired teachers group has pushed in court and in board elections for candidates who will challenge staff bonuses and investment decisions and for more transparency in how the investments and staff bonuses work.
On the other hand, STRS management says it needed to tighten the belt to recover losses from the last two recessions, because people live longer and because teacher contributions as a whole fell below projections. The board is conferring with its actuary on whether it can afford to give teachers a cost-of-living adjustment. If one is given, it would start July 1.
DeWine needs to sit down with Steen and other reform-minded members of the board to learn why they are pushing for change, said Robin Rayfield, executive director of the Ohio Retirement for Teachers Association.
“This attempt to manipulate the composition of the board, especially just hours before election results are announced for a contested board seat, only reinforces the broken trust that educators have with their pension system,” he said. “To say this pours jet fuel on the fire is an understatement.”
If Steen had remained, the board would have included six reform-minded members and five members who generally put more trust in STRS staff. It’s unclear what side of the schism DeWine’s new appointee will lean.
“The reform movement that has been talked about at the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (STRS) is being driven by teachers,” Steen said in a Monday statement. “Ohio educators have elected new members or ‘reformers’ in each of the last five elections over the last few years. Change at STRS has been a slow and deliberate process. Ohio educators would never do anything to harm their pension.”
DeWine wanted Steen to resign because of his low attendance, said Dan Tierney, DeWine’s spokesman.
“Since September of last year he has missed three meetings and only attended parts of three more,” Tierney said.
In Steen’s place, DeWine appointed G. Brent Bishop of Dublin, a Columbus suburb, to serve the remaining term, ending Sept. 27, 2024.
posted by Kathie Bracy at 9:59 PM
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