COLUMBUS, Ohio — Some Ohio lawmakers are pushing for increased oversight of the state’s public pension systems, amid recent moves by some of the systems to cut benefits for hundreds of thousands of current and future retirees.
State Rep. Brigid Kelly, a Cincinnati Democrat, is preparing to introduce three separate bills requiring the state’s five public-pension systems to:
- Broadcast their board meetings publicly
- Not do business with funds run by former pension employees and
- Disclose certain fee information for alternative investments
State Rep. Diane Grendell, a Geauga County Republican, is circulating her own proposed bill that would cap investment adviser fees and pay increases for top pension-fund employees for two of Ohio’s largest pension funds, and set up a new legislative panel to review all pension system fees and employee salaries.
Both sets of bills are co-sponsored by state Rep. Haraz Ghanbari, a Wood County Republican.
Neither set has been introduced, although Kelly said she plans to introduce hers soon after her co-sponsor request deadline passes on Jan. 31. Grendell plans to seek co-sponsors until Feb. 17.
“I started a couple months ago, because there are a lot of people in the state of Ohio who have been promised pension and retirement benefits as a result of service to this state,” Kelly said in an interview. “We think there should be transparency for those folks, and accountability for the people who run the funds.”
Grendell’s proposed bill would cap adviser fees and annual staff pay raises at the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, the state’s largest public pension system, and the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund, which represents retired police and firefighters, according to a memo she’s distributed to fellow lawmakers seeking co-sponsors.
Grendell, a former state lawmaker in the 1990s who was reappointed to a vacant House seat last year, said she has been studying issues with the state pension systems since her return to the legislature.
She said she’s concluded pension-system employees are too highly paid, and that their investment fees are too high.
“This is for people who have worked very hard for the state, at least many of them have, and to see constantly their benefits be dwindled away, while people are getting their golden parachutes,” she said.
Officials with both pension systems declined to comment for this story, since the bills have not yet been introduced.
Both systems recently moved to eliminate group health-care coverage for pre-Medicare retirees, instead giving retirees younger than 65 a stipend to help them buy coverage on the open market. The police system changes took effect in 2020, while OPERS voted to do so earlier this month, with the changes taking effect in 2022.
OPERS’ board earlier this month also voted to require retirees to pay a larger share of their health-care premiums. The move largely eliminates a projected $6.2 billion shortfall in the system’s health-care fund.
But a projected $24 billion unfunded liability remains in the OPERS main pension fund, despite years of higher-than-average returns in the broader investment market.
OPERS officials have said they are concerned what will happen to the fund’s solvency when the world economy and the investment markets eventually enter a decline.
Ohio’s pension systems long have faced funding issues, as their average retirees have lived longer and health-care costs have gone up. State lawmakers last passed major pension reforms in 2012, imposing a mix of increased employee contribution requirements and raised retirement ages.
To try to address the shortfall, the OPERS board last year voted to cut cost-of-living increases in 2022 and 2023, and to raise the retirement age for future state employees while requiring them to set aside an additional 1% of their pay. But those changes require approval from state lawmakers, who have not yet acted on the request.
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