At the September STRS Ohio Board meeting, ORTA addressed STRS Trustees and questioned if the Alternative Investments held in the STRS investment portfolio are in violation of Ohio law.
What is in question is whether or not Trustees are adhering to the language in ORC 3307.15 which is titled Investment and fiduciary duties of board. Specifically, the code calls for any statement of financial position distributed by the Board to include the fair value of all their investments. STRS management has invested approximately 20% of members’ monies in the Alternative Investment portfolio. These investments have non-disclosure agreements between the General Partner and Limited Partner (STRS) which are secretive. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for STRS to audit these investments. The reality is the General Partner tells the Limited Partner the value of their investment. As one can surmise, it is highly suspect that our Trustees can possibly know the fair value of these investments, which is required by Ohio law.
