Kathie Bracy's Blog: Letter to the SEC: Trouble at the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio

Letter to the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) December 2, 2023

To the Securities and Exchange Commission:

Subject: Trouble at the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio

If you are not familiar with the gross mismanagement that been going on at the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (STRS Ohio), I sincerely hope you will take a close look now as the System has been bleeding its teachers for years, not fulfilling their promise of a secure retirement for all teachers, but instead using their hard-earned money to fill their own pockets with out-of-sight huge salaries, perks and bonuses of up to six figures.

While this is happening, Ohio's active teachers are now being required to pay more into the system than their retirement is worth (14% of their salaries), and to work more than the customary 30 years to qualify for full retirement benefits.

Retired teachers were promised a COLA years ago, and for many years they received at least a 3% COLA until it was unceremoniously snatched away from them in 2017. With their lower pensions and no protection against today's runaway inflation, many are hurting badly while the STRS staff is able to live a lavish lifestyle with our money.

Edward Siedle summed it up well in his article of December 1, 2023, when he wrote:

"In June 2021, the damning findings of my expert forensic investigation of the pension commissioned by the Ohio Retirement for Teachers Association (“ORTA”) were released. Among the key findings in the 128-page report titled The High Cost of Secrecy:

"1. The pension had long abandoned transparency, opting instead to allow Wall Street money managers to withhold key investment documents from public scrutiny;

"2. Legislative oversight of the pension had utterly failed, as the Retirement Study Council had somehow failed to perform statutorily-mandated fiduciary audits over the past 16 years;

"3. Wall Street had been permitted to pocket lavish fees without review;

"4. Investment costs and performance had been misrepresented, i.e., dramatically understated; and

"5. Failure to monitor conflicts of interest had undermined the integrity of the investment process, as billions that could have been used to pay retirement benefits promised to teachers had been squandered."

STRS Ohio has over 500 employees, including over 80 "investment experts" who have received humongous bonuses, even in years when the system has lost billions of dollars. This year the investment staff was awarded $10 million in bonuses, then given a 30% raise in spite of failing to meet benchmarks and also losing $5 billion in the stock market. They also work in a virtual palace covering more downtown Columbus real estate than a football field, with huge amounts of wasted space costing teachers a fortune for heating, cooling and upkeep.

It's time for the SEC to step in and take a look at what's going on at STRS Ohio. The far-reaching and damaging result of the mismanagement there is only the tip of the iceberg. I cannot urge you strongly enough to investigate the situation and to please stop the bleeding of the teachers' funds. Thousands are hurting badly thanks to a pension system they had trusted most of their lives until they started learning the truth about where their money was actually going.

Thank you for any attention you can give to this matter. I and thousands of other Ohio teachers would be most appreciative of any help you can give us.

Link to Edward Siedle's article SEC Intervention At Ohio Teachers State Pension Is Long Overdue: https://pensionwarriorsdwardsiedle.substack.com/p/sec-intervention-at-ohio-teachers?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Sincerely,

Katherine B. Bracy

STRS Ohio 25-year Retired Member

[Address]

kbb47@aol.com

Blog about STRS history since 2004: https://kathiebracy.blogspot.com/

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Sent to the Chairman and Commissioners:

https://www.sec.gov/contact-information/sec-directory