Toledo Blade Editorial: STRS chaos internal

The STRS board majority now knows its in-house lawyers are actively and unethically working against their agenda. If it’s serious about implementing transparency and index investing, Ms. Wideman and Mr. Maxwell should be immediately terminated.

Ohio lawmakers looking to push teachers off their own pension board are blaming the wrong people for the alleged dysfunction at the State Teachers Retirement System.

Claiming chaos at STRS, Republican legislators are researching other states’ retirement board composition for support to retake control by stacking the STRS board with appointees of the governor, treasurer, and General Assembly.

The most significant sign of dysfunction on the STRS board is the suit brought by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost against former member Wade Steen and current chairman Rudy Fichtenbaum claiming a violation of fiduciary duty for an investment they proposed in 2021.

AG Yost’s case was initiated by an anonymous letter in 2024 claiming Mr. Steen and Mr. Fichtenbaum had close personal ties to the proprietors of aninvestment firm to which they attempted to steer STRS funds.

It turns out, due to mandatory legal discovery, that the authors of the letter were STRS Chief Legal Counsel Stacey Wideman and her top deputy Mark Maxwell. Ms. Wideman and Mr. Maxwell had a professional ethical responsibility to bring this issue to authorities in 2021 when it occurred, provided they had a legitimate concern that board members Steen and Fichtenbaum were trying to steer STRS funds to a favored fund manager.

The STRS Legal Counsel-written anonymous letter was launched when elected board members gained majority status and had the power to implement their campaign promise of full transparency for the STRS investment portfolio and a shift in investment strategy to low-cost market index funds.

When the Pennsylvania teachers pension became fully transparent on investment management costs, it showed payments totaling over eight times more than Ohio reported on a bigger fund.

The STRS board majority, comprised of elected active and retired teachers, has compelling evidence Ohio is paying much more than reported and achieving results well behind what a lower cost market index would produce. It’s the appointed experts who want to protect the failing status

quo and force Ohio taxpayers to increase their contributions to keep the pension solvent.

The STRS board majority now knows its in-house lawyers are actively and unethically working against their agenda. If it’s serious about implementingtransparency and index investing, Ms. Wideman and Mr. Maxwell should be immediately terminated.

Regardless of any board action, the STRS lawyers should be sanctioned by the Supreme Court Disciplinary Counsel for an anonymous claim their own fiduciary duty required them to make on a timely basis and put their name on if they had evidence of misconduct by STRS board members.

Toledo Blade Editorial Board

First Published May 18, 2025, 9:00 p.m.

Read this editorial online at https://www.toledoblade.com/opinion/editorials/2025/05/19/editorial-strs-chaos-internal/stories/20250519005

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