It’s no secret that America’s struggling public pensions are a hot mess. Lack of comprehensive state regulation; the failure of legislative oversight; lay boards lacking investment experience; Wall Street donations to corrupt influential politicians and law enforcement indifference, all contribute to the morass. It seems, on the one hand, no one with authority over pensions wants to see improvements and, on the other, participants whose retirement security is at risk have no say as to how their savings are invested. That may be about to change as workers participating in these pensions learn to band together effectively through social media and crowdfunding to demand an end to glaring mismanagement. Ohio promises to be the first state where participant-initiated reform may take hold, bringing an end to decades of callous squandering.

Through a grassroots donation campaign that began late last year, the Ohio Retired Teachers Association (ORTA) engaged my firm to conduct an independent expert forensic review of the $90 billion-plus State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio. According to ORTA, the decision to engage in this project was driven by a lack of trust between retirees and those managing their pension system. My investigative findings, The High Cost of Secrecy were released June 2021 and were widely reported in NBC News, Bloomberg and local media. David Sirota’s The Daily Poster hour-long podcast detailed the wealth transfer. The purpose of the high-impact limited forensic review was to readily identify, at a reduced cost, deficiencies which would significantly improve investment management and performance results.

This was not the first forensic investigation of a state pension I had undertaken. In Rhode Island, I completed an initial review of the $8 billion Employee Retirement System of Rhode Island on behalf of Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in 2013 and two later deep-dives crowdfunded by hundreds of state pension participants over the internet platform, kickstarter.com. In North Carolina, I conducted a forensic investigation of the $125 billion State Employees Retirement System of North Carolina on behalf of the State Employees Association of North Carolina. I am proud to say I have conducted the only participant-funded investigations of state pensions ever undertaken.

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