Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News

Ohio active and retired educators will have less of a voice on the state’s retired teachers’ pension fund board under the proposed final state budget.

Amid legislators’ concerns of an alleged corruption scheme threatening the fund, they have decided to reduce the number of elected positions and add more political appointments.

In the nearly 600 amendments to the 5,500-page operating budget bill, the conference committee led by House Finance Chair Brian Stewart, R-Ashville and Senate Finance Chair Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, included changes to the State Teachers Retirement System. The amendment was included and announced at about 1 a.m.

A provision in the bill would change the makeup of the board from seven elected teachers — five contributing and two retired — to three elected after seats are phased out over several years. Two of the educator seats will be for actives and only one retiree seat.

Each elected member will be able to finish their term, but once they term out, four of the seven seats will not be refilled. This means that once retiree Rudy Fichtenbaum and actives Michael Harkness and Chad Smith — the most recently elected members — would be the remaining seats as members term off.

Those four removed educator seats will be filled with newly appointed members. Right now, the governor gets to appoint one investment expert. The Speaker of the House and the Senate President jointly appoint an expert. The treasurer gets an appointee, and so does the director of the Department of Education and Workforce.

• Read more in the Dayton Daily News