Retired teachers, former public pension board members, state treasurers, a candidate for public office, and a former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney turned whistleblower are among the voices in a new documentary, “Pension Fight Club,” that takes aim at U.S. public pension systems’ widespread investments in alternative assets.
Pensions, like most institutions, moved into alternative investments over the past two decades in search of higher returns and diversification, particularly as low interest rates reduced bond yields and funding gaps widened. Private equity, hedge funds, and private credit were seen as a way to access less correlated returns and capture a premium in exchange for locking up capital in long-term funds. U.S. public pension funds have between 25 percent and 35 percent in private markets, while Canadian pensions allocate between 35 percent and 50 percent.
But since then, the criticisms of that move have become widespread. The documentary opens with New York comptroller candidate Drew Warshaw describing such investments as “the largest wealth transfer that no one knows about,” a line that underscores the film’s core critique.
Throughout the next 87 minutes, speakers describe what they characterize as a range of abuses, including reductions in cost of living adjustments that they argue are linked to high fees, as well as the difficulty pension board members face in finding the terms of these investments.
“What we hear all the time are teachers who may have paid for their homes, but they can't stay in their homes anymore because they can't pay the taxes on them,” says retired Ohio teacher Trina Prufer. “They can't make ends meet.
“Pension Fight Club,” which is now available to stream, is also being shown in several movie theaters across the country.
“We're putting in about 16.5 percent, but the benefit that we're getting is worth 11 percent,” says retired Minnesota teacher Stacy Bartlett, a comparison that reflects funding contributions versus projected benefits under current assumptions. Bartlett is a member of what has been named the “Pension Fight Club,” formed after teachers said they were unable to get clear answers from lawyers, regulators, or the attorney general about how their pension contributions were being invested.
They pooled $75,000 from a Facebook group of teachers to hire forensic investigator and whistleblower Ted Siedle to examine the Minnesota State Board of Investment.
Siedle, a former lawyer with the SEC’s Division of Investment Management, first investigated state pensions in Rhode Island after the state retirement system reduced pension benefits significantly.
In 2011 and 2012, State Treasurer Gina Raimondo cut cost‑of‑living adjustments for workers by 3 percent and shifted funds into hedge funds — a move framed as “pension reform” but described by union leaders and Siedle as a shift of wealth to Wall Street. Raimondo later became the governor of Rhode Island and then Secretary of Commerce under Joe Biden.
In his investigation, Siedle says he discovered through litigation that while the pension was disclosing $11 million a year in fees, those fees could have been substantially higher than disclosed. Siedle says he discovered through litigation that reported fees may significantly underestimate total costs — a claim that remains contested within the industry.
He has since worked for the Ohio Retired Teachers Association and more recently with former CalPERS board members and retirees.
Getting information has been a years-long legal effort in most cases, he says. It took five years to get information from Ohio’s pension fund, and some of it is still redacted.
“Thirty years ago, if you asked a pension fund for their investment contract, you would get them all very promptly. Over the course of the last 20 years, Wall Street has gone out to every single local county, state, city pension fund and has gotten legal opinions that these private equity and other private investments are exempt from state public records laws,” Siedle explains in the documentary.
As a result, he says that details of a significant portion of pension investment agreements are not disclosed, making it difficult to evaluate fees and performance or even determine if reported fees are accurate.
In some cases, the pension fund has agreed to reimburse the general partner for their taxes as well as paying for legal costs to defend against allegations of illegal behavior, according to J.J. Jelinic, a former board member of CalPERS.
In Ohio, former Governor John Kasich signed a 2012 law that allowed the 3 percent COLA increase guaranteed into retirement contracts to be removed for life. The state teachers’ union leadership argued that the underfunded pension was due to mismanagement, and the state auditor eventually agreed, concluding that had the pension been prudently managed, it would be about twice its current size, or $180 billion compared to $89 billion.
Many states have underfunded pensions, which has led some states to cut pension benefits and others to raise taxes on the public. The documentary attributes this in part to the move into alternative investments, citing their high fees and returns that don’t meet benchmarks.
In the documentary, whistleblowers and former board members in Kentucky, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, and South Carolina describe the abuses they have seen, and in some cases describe retaliation concerns.
They argue that fixing the problem is technically straightforward but politically difficult because Wall Street, politicians, and even unions benefit from the status quo.
“Pension Fight Club” is calling for full transparency, fiduciary audits, and open books, with union leaders and state treasurers in some places explicitly demanding that members know where their money is invested, who is investing it, and who is earning what fees.
