FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 16, 2025

STRS Members File Lawsuit to Defend Educators’ Voice on the STRS Board

Plaintiffs Are Members of Ohio’s Three Largest Education Unions

COLUMBUS — Today, members of the Ohio Education Association (OEA), the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT), and the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors (OC AAUP) filed a lawsuit in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas challenging an unconstitutional and discriminatory provision in the most recent Ohio state budget that strips educators of their rightful voice on the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board.

That legislation changes the current composition of the STRS Board (seven board members elected by STRS members and four politically-appointed members) by adding four more appointed members, effective September 30, 2025, and then gradually eliminating four elected positions. By the end of this month, elected members will be outnumbered by appointees, and by 2028, the STRS Board will have eight appointees and just three elected members.

The STRS Board is named as a defendant, but the lawsuit is only necessary because of the reckless actions of politicians. At the final stage of the budget process, the legislature’s Republican leadership — Speaker Matt Huffman and Senate President Rob McColley —  inserted this policy, which was drafted by Rep. Adam Bird. Governor Mike DeWine signed the state budget into law and declined to veto this budget line item.

“This policy is the latest in a long line of attacks against educators in Ohio,” said Glenetta Krause, a district-wide teacher mentor for Cincinnati Public Schools and member of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, who is the lead plaintiff. “Statehouse politicians have underfunded our public schools, rolled back our collective bargaining rights, fully eliminated Ohio’s elected State Board of Education, and told us what we can and can’t teach. Now they’re taking away our representation on our own retirement board. This lawsuit is about restoring fairness and protecting our fundamental right to have a say in how our retirement is managed.”

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This lawsuit alleges that the STRS Board changes are illegal for three reasons. First, this policy violates educators’ right to equal protection under the law because only the STRS Board was targeted by this action. Ohio’s other four public pension systems have boards where elected members are in the majority, and those systems will all retain their boards’ current composition.

Plaintiffs are also challenging the STRS Board changes for violating the “Three Considerations rule,” which requires that “Every bill shall be considered by each house on three different days,”  and the “Single Subject Rule,” which requires that “No bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.” The lawsuit alleges that these rules were violated because (1) the STRS Board receives no direct state funding, and as such was not relevant to the state budget; and (2) the amendments were inserted in the budget during the final stage of the process, leaving no time for the amendments to receive three considerations or for the General Assembly to waive the Three Considerations Rule requirement.

“As teachers, counselors, college faculty, and other licensed educators, we’ve dedicated our careers to educating our students and building a brighter future in our communities and we deserve the right to retire with dignity and security,” said Kevin Cain, a retired teacher and counselor and member of the Ohio Education Association, who is also a plaintiff. “This is a clear overreach by state policymakers, and it’s not just targeted at teachers. By hijacking control of our pension fund, legislators are sending a thinly veiled threat to the other public pensions in Ohio, ‘if you make decisions we don’t like, we’ll take control of your pension too.’”

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This policy change, which was preceded by baseless accusations and investigations targeting STRS Board members, comes at a time when the STRS Board has been able to restore member benefits that were rolled back almost a decade ago. In recent years, the Board, with approval from the fund’s actuary, has been able to once again provide some cost of living adjustments to retirees and begin to lower the years of service required for active members to receive full benefits.

Even Governor DeWine, who had previously been critical of STRS, praised the current direction of the STRS Board. In an interview in April 2025, he said “I’m looking at it from afar, but it seems that the board is working, and working in a productive way. I think we’ve, at least for a while now, we’ve come over from that problem that we’ve had in the past.”

“STRS’s elected board members have made real progress and have pledged to keep fighting to restore more of our benefits,” said Caleb Ochs-Naderer, a Professor at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and member of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors, another plaintiff in the lawsuit. “The power-hungry politicians at the statehouse want to take away our ability to elect our own advocates because they want control of our retirement savings. They just see dollar signs when they look at STRS, but educators like me see our years of hard work and our dreams for the future.”

Contacts:

OFT: Neil Bhaerman, nbhaerman@oft-aft.org, (412) 266-4899

OEA: Katie Olmsted, olmstedk@ohea.org, (614) 560-6299

OC AAUP: Sara Kilpatrick, sara@ocaaup.org, (614) 420-5718

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