COLUMBUS, Ohio — Three educators’ groups have sued to stop a new law that shifts control of Ohio’s State Teachers Retirement System board from educators to political appointees.
The Ohio Education Association, the Ohio Federation of Teachers, and the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors filed the case Tuesday in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.
The STRS board has 11 members. Teachers and retirees elect seven members, and state officials appoint the other four.
But lawmakers added four new appointees and phased out four elected members when they passed the state’s operating budget in June.
That means the board will have eight appointed members and three elected members by 2028.
Republicans said the change will stabilize the fund after years of controversy and leadership turnover.
“We stand by the law that was passed,” Rep. Adam Bird, a Clermont County Republican, said. “We believe the change was needed to provide stable governance to protect the pensions for hardworking teachers, current retirees, and future retirees.”
The lawsuit says the shift unfairly targeted STRS and was unconstitutional.
“This lawsuit is about restoring fairness and protecting our fundamental right to have a say in how our retirement is managed,” said Cincinnati Public School teacher Glenetta Kraus, the lead plaintiff on the case.
What’s behind the board fight
In 2024, Attorney General Dave Yost asked a court to remove two STRS board members, Wade Steen and Rudy Fichtenbaum.
He accused them of trying to steer the pension fund toward QED Technologies, a new company that Yost said had no track record managing public pensions.
According to Yost, the pair pushed for QED to oversee a large share of STRS’s $91 billion portfolio despite warnings from staff and outside consultants that the firm was unqualified and its investment strategy untested.
Steen and Fichtenbaum denied any wrongdoing.
“We’re going to defend this rigorously,” Steen told reporters in 2024. “None of it’s true. It’s all false.”
Both men came into office as part of a push to change the board’s direction.
STRS didn’t give out cost-of-living increases from 2017 through 2022, a fact that frustrated retirees. They filed records requests, brought lawsuits, and elected “reformers” to the board.
“I don’t think chaos strengthens the fund,” Bird said in June. “Retired teachers and today’s teachers can be assured that the promise that was made can be kept.”
But David Quolke said the board had already turned the corner.
The retired teacher is the past president of the Cleveland teachers’ union and is a vice president for its retiree wing.
“The process isn’t a simple or quick fix,” Quolke said.
The board approved a 1.5% COLA this summer and lowered the years of service for full retirement benefits.
The legal battle ahead
The lawsuit lays out three main reasons why the unions believe the STRS board changes are unconstitutional:
Equal protection: Ohio has five public pension systems, but STRS will be the only one where elected members are the minority.
Single-subject rule: The state constitution says bills must cover only one subject. Because STRS does not get state funding, the lawsuit argues the board change had nothing to do with the budget and should not have been included.
Three considerations rule: The constitution also requires every bill to be considered on three separate days in each chamber. The board change was added at the very end of budget negotiations, so unions argue it never received the required hearings.
“This is a clear overreach by state policymakers, and it’s not just targeted at teachers,” said Kevin Cain, a retired teacher and plaintiff. “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.’”
Lawmakers have broad authority to make changes to Ohio’s five public pension systems.
They can set rules for how funds are invested, adjust future benefits, and even change the structure of pension boards. That’s why Bird believes the court will uphold the law.
The unions don’t dispute that. Their case hinges on whether this change was made in the right way.