Melissa Cropper: "We’ll also be fighting like hell to hold each and every representative who voted for this budget accountable, not just in general elections but in primary elections too, and not just in the next election year but for the rest of their political careers."

From Melissa Cropper,

President of OFT,

To Chad Smith, 

Newly elected STRS board member

Dear Chad,

I’m writing to you with more details about one of the harmful policies that was slipped into the Ohio budget – changing the composition of the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board – and why it’s an attack on all public employees in Ohio.

Currently, the STRS Board has seven members who are elected by the STRS membership (five contributing members and two retirees) and four appointed members. The other four public employee pension systems in Ohio also have boards where the majority of seats are held by elected representatives.

In the very final stage of the budget process, Republican leadership, under the direction of Speaker Matt Huffman and Senate President Rob McColley, inserted a proposal from Rep. Adam Bird that changes the STRS Board to add four new appointed positions and remove four elected positions, creating a board that will eventually have eight appointed members and only three elected members. This policy was not in the Governor’s budget, the House’s budget, or the Senate’s budget, which means it was passed with absolutely no hearings and no public participation.

This provision applies to STRS only. While Ohio’s other pension funds are not directly affected by this policy change, legislators are sending a very clear message to those funds, including OPERS and SERS: if you elect representatives who make decisions we disagree with, we’ll take over your pension fund.

This is a targeted attack on educators that follows a long campaign of misinformation, anonymous allegations, and politicized investigations against elected members of the STRS Board. The root cause of these attacks is that entrenched administrators and politicians want STRS to keep doing business as usual, while STRS members have elected board members who challenged the status quo by questioning STRS’s investment policies and decisions about member benefits. As a reminder, the status quo was that retirees were not receiving regular cost of living adjustments and active members needed 34 years of service for a full retirement (and that was on the verge of being increased to 35 years).

Thanks to the work of elected board members, including OFT members Julie Sellers, Liz Jones, and Pat Davidson, progress has been made on both of these issues while still keeping the system fiscally sound. Board members have pledged to keep fighting for more COLAs and more reductions to the years of service requirement. Disenfranchising STRS members and taking away our elected representatives, will hurt our ability to keep making improvements.

In 1952, bank robber Willie Sutton was famously quoted as saying he robbed banks “because that's where the money is." With STRS holding more than $90 billion in assets – and the other Ohio pension funds holding billions and billions more – it is no surprise that legislators want to exert more control over these funds.

But it’s our retirement, not theirs. We are outraged by this politician takeover of our pension and we won’t accept it without a fight. We are in discussions with our national partners at AFT to explore our legal options.

We’re also looking into a proactive legislative strategy to defend our elected STRS Board seats. In mid-August, after we’ve worked out a few more details, we’ll be contacting you with more details on legislative action and outreach to legislators. Please keep an eye for that update. We’ll need all OFT members, local unions, and allies to take action.

Additionally, prior to this budget passing, we’ve been working with the Ohio AFL-CIO to start a public pensions coalition to defend the rights and retirement security of all Ohio public employees – work that is even more urgent now.

We’ll also be fighting like hell to hold each and every representative who voted for this budget accountable, not just in general elections but in primary elections too, and not just in the next election year but for the rest of their political careers. If you are interested in staying up to date on OFT’s political mobilization efforts, you can opt-in to regular email updates here.

I also want to share this op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch, written by Bill Boone, President of the Berea Federation of Teachers and Chair of OFT’s Retirement Committee: STRS Board was a victim of a hostile takeover. Teachers like me are at risk.

Finally, I want to highlight exactly which board seats are being eliminated. The timeline below shows how the composition of the Board will change over time. First, four new appointed positions will be added on September 28, 2025. Then, four elected positions will be phased out when the current terms expire. That means that in 2028, when all changes are complete, the only elected representatives will be the most recently elected Board members. That will have the effect of eliminating the board seats held by all three female board members, the only Black board member, and all three OFT members on the board. The three remaining board members are also members who we’ve supported in elections, including AAUP-AFT retiree Rudy Fichtenbaum.

STRS Board Timeline

Absent any legal challenges or legislative changes, this is how the STRS Board composition will change over time.

Through August 31, 2025 — 4 appointees and 7 elected (11 total). Elected members: Correthers, Sellers, Jones, Davidson, Flanigan, Fichtenbaum, Harkness,

September 1, 2025 - September 28, 2025 — 4 appointees and 7 elected (11 total). Elected members: Sellers, Jones, Davidson, Flanigan, Fichtenbaum, Harkness, Smith)

September 28, 2025 - August 31, 2026 — 8 appointees and 7 elected (15 total). Elected members: Sellers, Jones, Davidson, Flanigan, Fichtenbaum, Harkness, Smith)

September 1, 2026- August 31, 2027 — 8 appointees and 5 elected (13 total). Elected members: Davidson, Flanigan, Fichtenbaum, Harkness, Smith)

September 1, 2027 - August 31, 2028 — 8 appointees and 4 elected (12 total). Elected members: Flanigan, Fichtenbaum, Harkness, Smith)

September 1, 2028 - August 31, 2029 — 8 appointees and 3 elected (11 total). Elected members: Fichtenbaum, Harkness, Smith)

We will keep you updated on our efforts to stop this obscene legislative overreach. Please let us know if you have any questions.

In Solidarity,

Melissa Cropper, President

Ohio Federation of Teachers

Watchdog says politicians blocking transparency for teachers pension fund; Steve Toole, executive director of STRS, declines interview by Colleen Marshall

NBC4 Columbus

July 31, 2025

A retiree's watchdog group says Ohio politicians are trying to block transparency at the State Teachers Retirement System by silencing the voice of teachers, and replacing educators on the STRS board with political appointees. 

View Colleen Marshall's interview with JD Tremmel, co-founder of QED investment firm, here.

Colleen Marshall: A retirees’ watchdog group said Ohio politicians are trying to block transparency at the State Teachers Retirement System by silencing the voice of teachers and replacing educators on the STRS board with political appointees.

NBC4 Investigates

Amid STRS board changes, watchdog group raises concerns

by: Colleen Marshall

July 31, 2025 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A retirees’ watchdog group said Ohio politicians are trying to block transparency at the State Teachers Retirement System by silencing the voice of teachers and replacing educators on the STRS board with political appointees.

There have been several years of chaos at the massive pension system, with retired teachers denied cost-of-living increases and the Ohio attorney general filing a civil complaint against two board members.

Much of the power struggle can be traced to a 2020 investment proposal from a private investment entity known as QED. For the first time, one of the founders of QED, JD Tremmel, goes on the record.

Tremmel co-founded the private investment group. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said QED then teamed up with some STRS board members as part of an attempted hostile takeover of the $96 billion pension fund. However, Tremmel said they didn’t want to “take over” STRS – they wanted to save it from politicians and poor investments.

“I would say it’s not about me or QED or anything of that sort,” Tremmel said. “It’s about the teachers.”

Tremmel knows that Ohio’s retired teachers have gone years without promised annual cost-of-living increases, and he believes it’s because their pension fund underperforms the market.

“And they deserve better than this,” he said. “I mean, they deserve to have what they were promised, and under the current format, unless the taxpayers of the state of Ohio bail them out with $15 million a day, it’s not going to happen.”

Tremmel believes the STRS pension is poorly invested and not sustainable.

“They’re underperforming by the amount of their fees and trading costs, plus a little bit in the alternatives,” he said. “I mean, it’s difficult to be uniquely stupid somehow. It’s difficult to be uniquely smart.”

As part of a proposal made by QED in 2020, instead of having the internal STRS investment staff control the billions in retirement funds, transfer some of the pension money to better-performing index funds.

When asked, Tremmel admitted that part of the motivation behind QED’s involvement was to make money for the firm.

“Most certainly there’s an economic component of it,” he said. “The, the discussions we had had with board members, we weren’t going to receive any fixed fees, which is simply a percentage of the profits above an index.”

So QED would get paid when the investments performed better than the market. Tremmel said that last year, in the hands of the STRS staff, the pension fund performed nearly $1 billion below what it could have made through a passive index fund.

In 2020, QED was pushing the index fund proposal through then-board member Wade Steen and current board president Dr. Rudy Fichtenbaum. Steen and Fichtenbaum are the targets of Yost’s civil lawsuit, which claims they were working with QED for a hostile takeover of the fund. Tremmel admits communication with Steen, even texting during board meetings, which he admits was unusual.

“I’m not sure if it’s inappropriate,” he said. “I mean, I think from a fiduciary standpoint, they should rely upon people they believe who have an expertise in a subject matter. To the extent that we help educate board members about the issues, it STRS and, you know, encourage them to ask certain questions to gain more information.

“I mean, we’re not going to apologize for that,” Tremmel added. “We think that’s the ethical thing to do.”

New STRS CEO Stephen Toole had repeatedly turned down NBC4 interview requests, including not responding to a detailed list of questions due to pending litigation. However, STRS did release the following statement:

“STRS Ohio respects the legislature’s decision to restructure the retirement board. We are committed to working with state lawmakers to ensure a smooth implementation while upholding our mission to provide Ohio’s public educators a foundation for their financial security.”

Teachers (active and retired): Your pension belongs to YOU; ORTA needs YOUR HELP to keep it in YOUR HANDS, NOT those of a few clandestine politicians!

From ORTA

Dr. Robin Rayfield, Executive Director

July 2025

Your pension belongs to you, not to a handful of clandestine politicians.
Help us fight for you by donating to ORTA's Pension Defense Fund.

As luck would have it, ORTA was in the process of changing the format of our newsletter when the recent action taken by the people in the Ohio Statehouse occurred. Since the ‘midnight massacre’ resulted in STRS members’ voices being silenced by the politicians on July 1, 2025, many groups, including ORTA, have voiced opposition to this action.

For those that are not aware of what happened, a summary is in order…

As the budget bill for Ohio was in its final stages, the chair of the ORSC, Adam Bird (a retired school administrator) placed an amendment in the budget bill that removed four elected STRS board members and replaced these four members with four ‘political appointees.’ This action ensures that the politicians, not the elected members (who are active and retired Ohio teachers), of the STRS board control the management of our retirement system. This is a calculated effort to thwart reform at STRS.

Interesting is the fact that over 5 years ago, ORTA went to the ORSC chair, Kirk Schuring, with a request that the legislators help with suggested reforms to the STRS pension system. ORTA’s concerns were centered around increasing transparency, changing the investment strategies, and modifying the performance-based incentives (bonus) policies. Mr. Schuring, a friend to educators who has since passed away, informed ORTA that the STRS members that the answer to reforming the STRS pension rested with the STRS board, not the legislators. He was direct in offering us advice that if teachers wanted to reform the system, they simply needed to elect STRS board members that would push for reforms. Well, we did just that. Over the next six elections for seats, members of STRS voted for people that pledged to reform the system.

The politicians in Ohio, led by Governor DeWine, have engaged in politically motivated actions to stop the reform efforts at STRS Ohio. Examples of this effort to stop reform:

•  Governor DeWine illegally removed reform-minded Wade Steen. Mr. Steen won his challenge to DeWine’s illegal removal in court with a unanimous judgment by the courts.

•  DeWine then charged his attorney general Dave Yost with charging two reform board members, Wade Steen and Rudy Fichtenbaum for failing to fulfill their fiduciary duty and attempted to remove them from the board. Both are defending themselves in court at the present time. What is laughable is that the reason Yost charged these two men is based upon an anonymous memo written by the STRS management. We now know through court documents that the anonymous letter was written by STRS management who stood to lose power and money through the reforms.

•  When reformers won yet another seat on the STRS board, the governor and his henchmen attacked the STRS pension board with the current amendment to remove the elected seats on the pension board.

What is the response by ORTA?

ORTA is currently working with other interested parties to develop a broad-based response to this attack on democracy. It is imperative that the people negatively impacted by the politician’s latest move fight back. ORTA intends to work with the major unions of educators in Ohio to correct this injustice and ensure that teachers have a majority of voices on the STRS board. We hope to have a unified strategy developed and begin implementing this strategy soon.

ORTA has been asked several questions about this struggle. Listed below are some of the more common questions and responses:

•  Why would the governor and other political leaders go to such great lengths to silence teacher’s voices? This is difficult to answer as politicians rarely speak the truth about their motivations. Anything we say as an answer is an opinion. First, we follow the adage, follow the money.’ Are the politicians so dependent upon the money that Wall St. pays into the political system? Is the dark money that pollutes our political system so powerful that elected officials will turn their back on democracy? Another possibility is that this is yet another way to attack public education. Considering that the politicians reduced funding for public education in the current budget while putting over one billion dollars into private education, the elected officials in Ohio clearly want to destroy public schools. Taking away the benefit of a public pension for teachers certainly fits with this theory.

•  What reforms have taken place thus far that justify such an action by the legislators? What the media in Ohio have described as chaos at the STRS board is really nothing more than robust discussion about a system that has failed to deliver promised benefits to its members for over a decade. With the reduction in promised benefits beginning in 2012, members of STRS have questioned what is taking place at our pension. When it was exposed that investment employees at STRS were receiving bonus payments using their own performance as the benchmark people began asking questions. With a majority of seats controlled by status quo board members these questions were ignored. As more reformers were elected, these questions could no longer be ignored. To placate the membership a few of the promised benefits were restored. Promised COLAs in 2021, partial COLAs in 23, 24, and 25 were provided easing the burden of inflation. Changes in the performance-based incentive policy were implemented. These changes were resisted by the status quo members and robust discussion ensued. Discussion is not chaos. It is fiduciary duty in action. When the AG’s office and the governor do not get their way, the media intentionally print misleading information to show that there is chaos.

•  What reforms would ORTA like to see? Of course, ORTA would like to see a complete restoration of benefits, i.e., 30 years of service and guaranteed COLA. As teachers we are familiar with compromise as we negotiated contracts throughout our careers. Rarely did we get everything we wanted at the bargaining table. We have been asked many times, “Will we ever get back to 30 years and 3% annual COLAs?’ ORTA’s response is ‘Maybe not, but we can work to get there.’ Currently, the years of service are 32 years. There is no permanent COLA. ORTA would support changes in the pension system that the board is working toward. It appears (this has not been stated by the board) that a stabilization effort the land at 32 years of service and a permanent COLA of 2% would be a compromise that everyone could live with.

ORTA would also fight for transparency at STRS. Despite STRS claims that they are transparent and share investment data, the facts simply do not match these claims. As stakeholders (and the ones that pay into the system) STRS members should know what the investment returns are. Not what STRS claims the investments returns are, but the actual, externally verified returns are. Any bonus payments must be measured against a bona fide metric, and the externally verified returns must be used. This does not seem like chaos to ORTA. This is a reasonable standard to use when paying for performance.

ORTA recognizes that this recent move by the legislators is an attempt to wipe out all the recent success our members have enjoyed. Our victory in the Wade Steen court case, and our financial assistance with Dr. Fichtenbaum’s defense are important. However, these two legal battles have come at a high price.

The Pension Defense Fund has collected nearly $100,000. However, our costs are nearly $250,000. We need your help!

If ORTA joins in a coalition of other groups to fight the battle against the board takeover by the politicians, the need will be even greater. Our Pension Defense Fund needs are growing. With over 2,000 individuals contributing to the cause, the effort is a grassroots effort.

If you are able, I urge you to go to www.orta.org/defense-fund to make your contribution today.