Excerpt from the Ohio Capital Journal
The retired teachers’ pension board chair is defending himself after being accused of bribery and corruption by the Ohio attorney general. In this one-on-one interview, Rudy Fichtenbaum explained his side — and why he is still considering a deal with the investment firm at the center of the scandal.
“I’ve never taken any money,” the STRS chair said. “I was never offered any money.”
A retired professor of economics at Wright State University, Fichtenbaum was elected to the STRS board in 2021. He ran on the platform that he wanted to fully restore the COLA, increase transparency within the pension fund and move towards passive investing.
He has been critical of STRS, including the benchmark system used to calculate bonuses for investment staff.
At the end of June, Fichtenbaum led the charge to eliminate millions of dollars in bonuses for their investment staff, which educators cheered. They said it wasn’t fair that the staff get performance-based incentives (PBIs) when they have a restricted COLA.
However, the $10 million is nowhere near close enough to restore the COLA, which Fichtenbaum acknowledged.
“Even if it is symbolic, I think is important because it kind of says, ‘We’re all in this together.'”
