Carlton Lenoir and the lack of transparency at Illinois' Teacher Retirement System.
On a Tuesday morning in August of 2020 I received an email from a source who told me that TRS staff had been informed that Illinois Teacher Retirement System’s executive directer Richard Ingram was fired.
I immediately posted the fact on my blog along with a reaction from Bob Lyons who for years was the retiree rep on the TRS board of directors. Bob has always believed in full transparency when it comes to how TRS handles our money.
Transparency though is not the standard operating procedure for TRS.
The lack of transparency at TRS applies to investments, fees, returns as well as personnel matters.
Two days went by after I posted the news of Ingram’s forced departure. But the story was nowhere else.
Which I thought was weird.
I received a few phone calls from local Chicago reporters who cover education and teacher unions, but nothing came of it.
After a few days and just hours before any TRS member was notified by TRS, Greg Hinz at Crain’s reported that Ingram was gone.
But other than the fact that Ingram was fired, Greg Hinz just repeated his usual anti-pension half truths and misdirection, including the fake news that TRS returns on investment had tumbled and suggested that this was somehow related to the firing of Ingram.
Yet nobody at TRS was claiming Ingram’s departure has anything to do with investment returns.
In fact they weren’t saying anything.
It took two days after the board accepted Ingram’s forced resignation letter that members received an email informing us that Ingram was gone.
Meanwhile the TRS board had already fired Jana Bergschneider, the chief financial officer. Bergschneider had been with TRS for 24 years.
Again, there was no explanation coming from the TRS board explaining Bergschneider’s departure.
Also gone was Jay Singh, the chief technology officer for TRS. He had been on the job for only 9 months and left in April.
Jim Vail, a CPS teacher who blogs at Second City Teachers is now reporting on the departure from TRS of its Chief Benefits Officer Carlton Lenoir.
Lenoir became the Chief Benefits Officer of TRS in 2016 and then resigned on July 6, 2021.
Lenoir left TRS after an investigation by the Office of the Executive Inspector General which found that there was probable cause “to believe that a violation of law or policy has occurred, or that there has been fraud, waste, mismanagement, misconduct, nonfeasance, misfeasance, or malfeasance.”
Following the investigation Lenoir was placed on the TRS do not hire list.
The OEIG investigation reported that when Lenoir was a TRS employee he forwarded confidential TRS information to two personal email accounts.
The OEIG reported about emails that 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.
In what reminded me of Trump, the emails included documents labeled “highly confidential information.”
Of course, unlike what Trump is charged with, these weren’t national security documents.
Some might even argue that investments amounts, pay out amounts in incentive fees and performance breakdowns might be of interest to TRS members and shouldn’t be highly confidential information anyway.
Meanwhile nothing about Carlton Lenoir’s misdeeds was known to TRS members.
And a month after he departed unceremoniously from TRS, he was hired as executive director of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) where he is today.
A few days ago Lenoir was honored as one of Crain's Chicago Business' 2023 Notable Leaders in Finance.
“This recognition highlights Lenoir's exceptional leadership, dedication, and contributions to the financial sector in Chicago,” wrote Crain’s.