COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio's five public retirement systems spent more than $1 million on travel to conferences during a one-year period while the economy continued to squeeze the funds' pension investments, according to records reviewed by a newspaper.
The Columbus Dispatch in Wednesday's editions reported on documentation obtained through a public records request, covering the pension funds' conference-related travel between June 2009 and June 2010. Bills ranged from a few dollars for officials to attend a workshop in Columbus to more than $10,000 for overseas trips taken by managers with the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.
Attendance fees alone cost as much as $2,544 per conference, the newspaper reported.
The pension funds argue that they need to send people to events on investing, information technology and management methods to keep up with volatile financial markets, so the funds to do the best job with the money entrusted to them. But the travel costs rankle some of the state's retired public employees.
"It seems like the little people in a corporation – and I don't care what corporation you're talking about – are the ones that suffer," complained Kathy Bowman, a retiree in Van Wert in northwest Ohio. Her monthly health care rate through the School Employees Retirement System of Ohio is set to jump from $202 to $579 next year as that pension plan strives to stay solvent.
"The big wheels are the ones taking the extravagant vacations," Bowman said.
The School Employees Retirement System has taken steps to hold down its trip expenses, such as no longer sending representatives to an annual conference in Hawaii, said Tim Barbour, a spokesman for the fund.
Gary Monto, president of the Police & Fire Retirees of Ohio, said he understands that the pension fund's trustees – who are fellow retirees, not financial experts – need to be kept informed about investments. But he said records indicating two trustees stayed in $400-a-night rooms last fall at a conference's New York host hotel "do not make me happy."
The documents also listed other, much cheaper hotel charges and numerous low-cost meals for pension board members and employees while on the road, the Dispatch reported.
