Chicago Teaches’ Pension Fund Board Meeting May 15, 2025
The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund met May 15, 2025 to vote on fund resolutions and investments.
Two Chicago Public Schools (CPS) school board members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson were sworn in as the new pension trustees - Ed Bannon and Emma Lozano.
Tina Padilla representing the Pension Advocacy Group (PAG) once again spoke during the opening public participation period. She said she is upset that CTPF dismantled the communications, personnel, and policy committees, which she said represent the Fund’s fiduciary responsibilities. She said her PAG group can help CTPF and protect the hard earned retirement that was established 130 years ago.
“I heard they called a 401k a defined benefit and it’s a big lie,” she said. “Let’s educate our members and call the defined benefit of our pension the gold standard. I appreciate all you do.”
VP Jacquelyn Price Ward conducted the meeting in place of President Jeffery Blackwell who is on leave after an accident. She said Board Trustees can only make public comments during the new business portion at the end of the meeting. Teacher Trustee Paula Barajas had made a public comment at the last board meeting in support of the workers organizing at Sorenson who claim that Ariel Investments is engaged in union busting.
The three Trustees who participated remotely were Trustee Blackwell (medical leave), Retired Teacher Trustee Mary Sharon Reilly (chemotherapy) and Administrators Trustees Pedro Beiza (work).
The majority of Trustees approved a $600k contract for compliance payroll auditing and a re-investment of $10 million in the NMS Fund V. The CIO Fernando Vinzons said this private equity group is looking to raise $650 million and so far have raised $50 million.
“As everyone knows I’m not a fan of private equity, but their governance policies and how they manage themselves, and their companies gave me a little faith,” Teacher Trustee Paula Barajas said before the vote in favor of the reup.
Retired Teacher Trustee Maria J. Rodriguez asked CTPF staff if they think private equity companies are going in a different direction, and not assaulting the public by buying up companies and shedding workers’ jobs, healthcare and pensions. She noted that the Fund’s consultant Callan said sometimes there has to be pain. CIO Vinzons said it is very difficult for private equity companies to come back to their investors and ask for money when they know they eliminated a lot of jobs, especially during Covid.
“Everyone is looking for growth and not destruction,” Vinzons said.
The Trustees voted to approve trustee training hours for conferences in Nashville, Columbus, OH, and Williamsburg, VA. Trustee Beiza must love that hot sun because he again asked to attend a conference in Miami this summer. The CORE Trustees Barajas, Tammie Vinson, Quentin Washington, Price Ward and Vicki Kurzydlo will attend the Trustee Leadership Forum.
CTPF Executive Director Carlton Lenoir stated the CTPF Fund is now at $13 billion earning a 6.2 percent return, everything exceeding their benchmarks. They are celebrating the CTPF 130th Anniversary and they created a special website for the occasion. They said other public pension funds like the idea of celebrating their elderly members by sending out birthday card greetings marking certain age milestones, including four cards sent out to members who are over 100. (One Trustee told me the Retired Teachers Assoc of Chicago (RTAC) has been doing this for years) Lenoir said the Fund responded well to the volatility created in the markets due to the new tariffs and that they have fully recovered from the April 9th low point.
The new Investment Committee meeting will be June 10th and the next CTPF Board meeting will be June 26, 2025.
CTPF currently has about 27k retired members and 33k active members.
The lobbyist made her report that did not focus on any specific legislation, only talk of Tier 2, retiree health insurance costs and other bills, and that there may be a special legislation session in June.
“Things change at the drop of a dime here in Springfield,” the lobbyist said. She said the state has a $580 million deficit. She expressed her frustration with the political process noting they never know how much money they will get from Washington D.C. and which party will bring it home - be it Democrats, Greens or “heck an independent party.”
Several Trustees then congratulated and thanked the lobbyist for her report and hosting the lobby days in Springfield, which they say is very important so that legislators know that CTPF is an important player that they have to pay attention to.
It was interesting to hear the lobbyist talk about public pension fund politics. While CTPF Ex Dir Carlton Lenoir said the Fund cannot engage in the Tier 2 fight because they must act as ‘fiduciaries’, the CTPF lobbyist said IL is looking at public pension retirement money investments in El Salvador, where President Trump is sending deported migrants, some apparently by mistake. They probably want divestment.
Global partisan politics has always trumped fiduciary responsibility.
The CTPF and other public pension funds pulled investments out of Russia when the war in Ukraine began in 2022. But this political decision to divest from Russia was never discussed by the Trustees. The U.S. is engaged in the conflict by arming Ukraine with billions of dollars in weapons that has escalated the war.
A flyer was passed outside the Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates meeting last week entitled Let’s Get Our Pension Money Out of the Gaza Genocide. The flyer noted that the US-armed Israeli military has killed over 15,600 Palestinian students and 890 education workers and destroyed every university in Gaza over 100 schools. The CTPF holds $2 million in bonds funding the Israeli government, $95 million in weapons manufacturing arming Israel and other wars and $60 million in companies engaged in the siege of Gaza. The flyer noted that other unions including UTLA, Oakland and Berkeley have urged their pension funds to divest from Israel’s genocidal war. This issue was not discussed during the lobbyist report on divesting from San Salvador.
Karen Anderson, a founding member and president of the Englewood Montessori Network Charter School, made a waiver request at the last CTPF Board meeting in March. She said she was a retired attorney doing her charity mission with this group. She said that their school was making pension payments, until their executive director fell ill and went on a long leave of absence. She said they agreed to allow CTPF to do an audit in 2018 and the school paid $18k. A pension payment was made and the audit was just completed in Oct, 2024. They paid $80k for the audit and negotiated other amounts, with a settlement of a $32k payment for pension. “These funds are not in our current budget,” Anderson told the CTPF Trustees. “We implemented new financial controls, $132k remains and we want a waiver.”
She then tried to tug at the pension trustees heartstrings by noting that they made sacrifices to make sure the Southside and Englewood would get a Montessori School where there were none. “(They) said we need one on the Southside and there are no options for this kind of education in the Englewood community, so we granted the community's wish.” She said they have been in Englewood for 15 years with a full enrollment of 460 students. She said they consider their school a public school, but the charter brought a different model, and five of their students were accepted to magnet high schools. They train more teachers of color than any other organization.
“This was devastating to us and we ask for your compassion,” Anderson said. “We don't have big debts, we are financially prudent. We fund Head Start and any other money we raise goes to teachers and students.” Their CFO said they had misclassified wages and $132k bill is a lot for a small organization. They do not have an endowment or reserves, they only operate with CPS tax dollars and corporate and individual donations. They have only 15 days of cash on hand. He said 80 percent of their budget is personnel and resources, and 90% is instructional support of their budget. Trustee Rodriguez said they had tried in 2022 to come to a settlement to waive statutory penalties and were encouraged by CTPF Counsel Daniel Hurtado to apply for a waiver.
“I feel like this is a fine school,” Trustee Mary Sharon Reilly said. “They’re working hard doing what’s right, but wouldn’t every principal in the city love to have an extra $100 thousand dollars, and not have to pay their 9 percent pension contribution … Everybody in the school system would love some extra money.”
A motion was made at the May 15 Board meeting and passed to deny the Englewood Montessori School request for a waiver of penalties, but offer a payment plan to resolve the outstanding balance that both parties agree to.