Chicago Teachers Pension Fund Executive Director on Do Not Hire List
Chicago Teachers Pension Fund Executive Director Carlton Lenoir is on a Do Not Hire List at the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) where he previously worked after the Office of the Executive Inspector General (OEIG) investigated a complaint that he had improperly forwarded confidential TRS documents to his personal email accounts.
According to a redacted version of the OEIG investigative report, when Lenoir was a TRS employee he forwarded confidential TRS information to two personal email accounts. These emails included over 300 TRS members’ names and Social Security numbers, a Public Markets Oversight Committee meeting packet that contained investment amounts, pay out amounts in incentive fees, and performance breakdowns for TRS investment funds/managers which was labeled “highly confidential information.”
Lenoir did not deny that he forwarded the TRS materials to himself, the report stated.
Lenoir became the Chief Benefits Officer of TRS in 2016 and then resigned on July 6, 2021 and the next month was named the Executive Director of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund.
The report stated that Lenoir ran the Members’ Services Department and according to an employee whose name was redacted in the report, Lenoir had access to all the information about every member and any information about TRS policies, reports and anything shared amongst executive staff.
The Illinois Identify Protection Act prohibits using a Social Security number for any purpose other than what it was collected to do and TRS policy prohibits employees from collecting, using, disclosing or electronically removing TRS members’ Social Security numbers from TRS offices other than for the purpose for which it was collected, the report stated.
The TRS employee stated in the report that the information Lenoir sent to his personal account could have exposed TRS to violations of non-disclosure agreements and resulted in ‘pretty substantial penalties.’ All three of Lenoir’s attached documents were labeled confidential.
Former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) attorney and investigator of public pension funds Ted Siedle said plan participants and money managers may be concerned that their private investment information is being forwarded to personal email accounts.
“There are two concerns in this document,” Siedle said by phone. “First are the social security numbers of participants. In my opinion, at a minimum the impacted participants should have been notified of the security breach, in order to protect themsleves from potential harm. The other concern is sharing private equity documents tied to confidentiality agreements that could expose the Fund to serious harm.
Siedle, who co-authored the book Who Stole My Pension, said it is ironic to raise this latter concern when he has been advocating to eliminate confidential agreements with money managers because they manage a public pension fund money that should be open to public scrutiny and disclose any hidden and/or excessive manager fees. He has conducted several public pension fund audits that have exposed a lot of hidden fees.
According to the report, Lenoir left a voicemail for the concerned TRS employee that said he deleted the emails including those with social security numbers and that he was not sure why he did this. But then he mentioned that it was used for professional reference. He later wrote a letter to refute the DNH by stating that he has had five years of stellar performance evaluations and that he had the authority to share TRS materials with their reciprocal partners. He said he wanted to share information for best practice during the pandemic and that none of the emails were opened. He added in the letter that members of his new board (CTPF) were worried about overpayments and he wanted to show that overpayments occur in all plans.
“The attack was personal, and (name redacted) has weaponized the OEIG to further his personal vendetta on a man that never had ill will toward him,” Lenoir wrote.
Lenoir exercised his Fifth Amendment rights to not answer any of the OEIG’s questions after he was contacted by them between Feb. 15 and March 7, 2022.
The OEIG recommended that Lenoir be placed on a Do Not Hire list and that there is “reasonable cause to believe that a violation of law or policy has occurred.”
You can read the full report here - https://eec.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/eec/eig-summary-reports/06.07.23-lenoir-21-01693-released-redacted-summary-report-.pdf?wcmmode=disabled