Ohio lawmakers set to remove majority of educators from retired teachers’ pension fund board
- ORTA
- Jun 25
- 1 min read
Contact your legislators today! The budget deadline is at the end of June.
Ohio active and retired educators will have less of a voice on the state’s retired teachers’ pension fund board under the proposed final budget. Amid legislators’ concerns of an alleged corruption scheme threatening the fund, they have decided to reduce the number of elected positions and add more political appointments.
A provision in the bill would change the makeup of the board from seven elected teachers — five contributing and two retired — to three elected after seats are phased out over several years. Two of the educator seats will be for actives and only one retiree seat.
Each elected member will be able to finish their term, but once they term out, four of the seven seats will not be refilled. This means that once Retiree Rudy Fichtenbaum and actives Michael Harkness and Chad Smith — the most recently elected members — would be the remaining seats as members term off.
This provision was proposed by state Rep. Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, the chair of the Ohio Retirement Study Council. For months now, he has been evaluating the board makeup due to the controversy inside the fund.
