NCSL overview: teacher retirement boards vary widely; Ohio aligns with national averages

NCSL policy specialist Angela Roe told the Retirement Study Council on July 8, 2024, that teacher retirement boards across the United States vary widely in membership, selection and duties, and that Ohio’s board is broadly similar to national peers.

Roe said the National Conference of State Legislatures collects and publishes comparative data for legislatures and that “NCSL is very strictly nonpartisan.” She summarized board composition, term lengths, selection methods, fiduciary duties and recent cost‑of‑living adjustments (COLAs).

The nut graf: board composition shapes who oversees hundreds of billions in teacher retirement assets and can affect investment and administrative choices. Roe told the council states determine board makeup by law, combining elections, executive appointments and ex officio seats; those structural choices vary and have no single, clearly superior national model.

Roe said board size ranges from three members in Florida to 20 in Tennessee, with a national average of about 10.75 members and term lengths generally between two and six years. Selection typically mixes member elections, gubernatorial or legislative appointments and ex officio seats; the state treasurer is the most common ex officio representative. “Ex officio members are typically appointed by the governor or elected by members of the system,” she said.

On member representation, Roe said roughly 41 states plus Washington, D.C., require active or retired teacher representation on teacher retirement boards; Florida is an outlier that has only three ex officio members and no specific teacher representation. For boards that do include teachers, Roe estimated teacher representation ranges from about 20% up to roughly 70%, with a rough average near 40% when counting only active and retired teachers (not other education officials).

Roe provided a regional comparison with neighboring states. She said Ohio’s teacher representation is about 63% and that Ohio’s board size and term lengths are similar to Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kentucky. On plan size, Roe said Ohio’s teachers’ retirement plan has roughly $100 billion in assets (approximate), placing it among the larger teacher plans nationally.

Roe also summarized recent COLA actions tracked by NCSL as one data point on benefit changes: Indiana issued 13 checks for public retirees (including teachers), Maryland enacted a 4.116% adjustment for certain systems, Missouri approved a 2% COLA effective January, and Rhode Island approved a 2.89% COLA for 2025; she noted NCSL tracks ad hoc and legislatively enacted COLAs distinct from automatic plan COLAs.

Council members asked Roe for more analysis tying board structure to plan outcomes. Representative Brennan asked whether Roe found any correlation between board structure and system success; Roe said she did not see a direct correlation in her initial review and offered to dig deeper using the underlying spreadsheet data and follow up with the committee. Roe also offered to research the historical record and statute changes for Ohio and neighboring states if the committee wanted that timeline documented.

Ending: Roe said NCSL maintains a pension database and other resources for legislatures and offered to share her spreadsheet and to provide further analysis on request.