Ohio Auditor Warns State Teachers Pension: Stop Misleading Public, As He Misleads Public

The Ohio Auditor of State doesn't have the wits or guts to hold anyone accountable for state pension abuses. What could be worse? Now, he wants to be Attorney General.

Two-time State Auditor Keith Faber’s demonstrated dull-wittedness about looting at the state’s pensions means, in Ohio, he has the very qualifications to be the next Attorney General.

The State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, like all of our nation’s public pensions, has increasingly embraced secrecy and demonstrated a willingness to mislead the public on crucial investment matters, such as outlandish fees paid to Wall Street and lackluster performance. Indeed, even after 5 years of litigation, when the pension was recently ordered by the Ohio Court of Appeals to release key investment documents we had long requested for public scrutiny, the pension refused—indicating it would first have to ask Wall Street for permission to disclose the information.

Rarely, however, are state pensions called-out by fellow state politicians, such as state auditors and Attorneys General, for their lack of transparency and wild misrepresentations to the public. STRS Ohio is a notable exception.

Last year, on April 27, 2024, Keith Faber, the Ohio Auditor of State, sent a blistering letter to the Executive Director and Chair of the $90 billion pension. In his letter, Faber chastised pension executives for misrepresenting to the public that a general transparency award his office granted the pension for 2023 amounted to an endorsement of the public entity’s overall transparency.

To be clear, wrote the Auditor, his office’s general transparency rating was “simply our rating of an entity’s compliance with Ohio’s open meeting and public records laws. It is NOT to be taken as the Auditor of State’s examination or determination of a public entity’s overall transparency.”

In fact, just a few short months earlier—Faber reminded the pension—“my office issued a detailed special audit finding that STRS has a long way to go to being fully transparent with Ohioans, its retirees, and members of the General Assembly. For any person or organization to conflate our StaRS (transparency) award with a determination of overall operational transparency is simply wrong and may serve to confuse the public. As noted in our special audit, we strongly encouraged STRS to change its practices to become more transparent with its STRS Board and members.”

“For any person or organization to conflate our StaRS (transparency) award with a determination of overall operational transparency is simply wrong (emphasis added) and may serve to confuse the public (emphasis added). As noted in our special audit, we strongly encouraged STRS to change its practices to become more transparent with its STRS Board and members.”

STRS did stop touting the glowing transparency rating assigned by Faber. However, as indicated in its response to our public records victory, STRS hasn’t changed its practices one iota and today is even resistant to court-ordered transparency.

Nevertheless, Faber’s StaRS rating system indicates that the pension from July, 2019 through today (June, 2024) has consistently received his office’s Highest Achievement in Open and Transparent Government Award.

Want to confuse the public? Congrats, Faber, you’ve done it.

After two terms as Auditor, which included a bungled so-called special investigation of STRS, Faber is now running for Attorney General. Remarkably, having served as past Chair of the Ohio Retirement Study Council overseeing the state’s pensions, he has demonstrated dull-wittedness about looting of pensions. Wall Street will be thrilled to see its candidate win.