Minnesota State Pension Finally Responds To Teachers' Public Record Requests, Sort Of
A year after teachers requested disclosure of records regarding their pension investments, Minnesota's SBI gave them material they didn't ask for and none of the key information requested. Why?
Nearly a year after we submitted, on behalf of thousands of state pensioners, requests for public records to Minnesota’s State Board of Investments (SBI), yesterday—for some unknown reason—SBI decided it was finally time to give some limited information to participants regarding the $146 billion investment portfolio it manages to provide for their retirement security.
For the past year, SBI had given us nothing.
Why now?
SBI had successfully waited out the participant-funded investigation. That is, pension officials managed to withhold all documents requested until long after the expert forensic investigation commissioned by participants was concluded in September 2024.
Why give these documents?
Worse still, the documents provided just yesterday were not the key investment documents requested. Rather, they were simply already publicly available SEC filings.
Too little, too late for participants.
Stonewalling had resulted in a clear win for SBI staff and Wall Street billionaires intent upon keeping state workers in the dark as to how their retirement savings are invested.
Stonewalling had resulted in a clear win for SBI staff and Wall Street billionaires intent upon keeping state workers in the dark as to how their retirement savings are invested.
SBI’s legal counsel, John Mule quipped in his email yesterday, “Enjoy!”
So, why would SBI—a year after public record requests were made—want to appear to be complying with state public records law?
Two possible reasons SBI may have responded at this time:
First, almost two months ago, we requested that Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor conduct a Special Review of the state’s pensions as a result of the financial irregularities we identified in our damning 113-page investigation. State law gives OLA the authority to conduct these special reviews. They are often triggered by concerns by legislators, other public officials, private individuals, or media reports.
OLA has had plenty of time to consider our request and, in our opinion, it would be impossible for the Office to fail to find a “reasonable basis” for such an audit. And, as we learned early on, SBI and OLA have long communicated about (as well as attempted to thwart) our investigation before it was even funded.
Second, on January 17th, we publicly invited Trump’s FBI, SEC and DOJ to join our investigation into Minnesota’s state pensions under Walz’s Watch. As we noted:
No one can predict whether the incoming administration might intervene to end mismanagement of this massive state fund established to provide retirement security for hundreds of thousands of government workers. However, the case should be appealing to a true “disruptor,” like Trump. For decades, neither political party has been willing to attack mismanagement of public pension assets. Rather both parties have sought to use workers’ retirement savings for their own political advantage.
While many Minnesota educators may have not voted for Trump, they may be pleasantly surprised if his FBI, SEC and DOJ were to come to their aid after their favorite politicians have failed them.
Taunting state pension participants—after a year of stonewalling—by flooding them with bogus documents they didn’t request, is hardly a winning strategy.