Laura Ecklar speaks to the Columbus Dispatch re: STRS performance bonuses

From John Curry, October 20, 2008

Columbus Dispatch
October 20, 2008

Teacher pension defends performance bonuses

With pension investments withering in Wall Street's hostile climate, two retired teachers are challenging their pension system's decision to award $6 million in performance bonuses to its investment staff.

Dean and Donna Seaman, teachers who retired in 1986 and 2002, respectively, wrote an e-mail message to board members and staff of the State Teachers Retirement System criticizing the performance bonuses. The message has been circulated among many activist retired teachers, who have kept an eye on the pension system.

"We are APPALLED that you are planning to pay $6 million in bonuses and incentives to the investment staff in the face of $25 BILLION losses," the Seamans wrote. "Please reconsider! The investment staff has NOT done anything to be rewarded for! Their salaries are already higher than any of us who have spent years paying into this retirement fund. They deserve NO bonuses."

State Teachers Retirement System spokeswoman Laura Ecklar said the $6 million in performance bonuses approved by the pension board in August was $3.4 million less than the budgeted amount of $9.4 billion and $2.2 million less than the amount paid in fiscal 2007.

She added that the pension system makes about 80 percent its investment decisions using its own staff rather than more expensive outside money managers. Even with the bonuses, the pension staff are paid less than their private-sector counterparts, Ecklar said.

"This long-standing practice has saved this system millions of dollars," Ecklar wrote.

Tags:

• pension systems
• performance bonuses

Posted by James Nash, Statehouse reporter on October 20, 2008