Whistle Blower

CTPF Whistleblower Complaints Looking Suspicious

By Jim Vail 

The four CTPF trustees who attended the recent Callan
Investment conference in Salt Lake City (Jerry Travlos,
principal, Phil Weiss, Jeffery Blackwell, Jacqueline Price-Ward ) all voted to
censure three female minority trustees.

National Whistleblower Appreciation Day was celebrated on July 30 to recognize whistleblowers whose actions have protected the American people from fraud or malfeasance. 

Chicago Teachers Pension Fund President Jeffery Blackwell and the board took action against four female trustees - almost a quarter of the trustees who serve - because of numerous whistleblower complaints against them. 

Except these complaints did not expose fraud or corruption, but rather racist and unprofessional conduct on the part of trustees toward staff members of the pension fund, according to Blackwell. 

"There is a culture of intimidation, intentional misinformation, discrimination, slander, misogyny, fear-mongering, blatant racism, sexism and retaliatory actions from trustees toward staff and vendors," Blackwell said at the August 2020 board meeting. 

He told the board last year that he reviewed audio of verbal abuse from trustees to staff during board and committee meetings and that he himself, the first African-American male to become president of the board, has been on the receiving end of "sabotage, intimidation and racist comments from individuals I believed were my colleagues and friends."

"I have witnessed former trustees slander, harass and defame vendors simply because they can," he said.

He said there were at least 12 active whistleblower complaints from staff against current trustees.

Phil Weiss, newly elected trustee,  then made a motion that was passed to censure Trustees Gervaise Clay, Tina Padilla and Maria Rodriguez - all women of color, and had it published in the CTPF newsletter. Trustee Mary Sharon Reilly, a white female, was reprimanded for racism.

The pictures of the trustees were not published in the newsletter, leading some to speculate that it doesn't look good to show that the racists and misogynists he insisted permeate the board are in fact women of color. 

Can a female person of color be accused of misogyny and racism toward others such as Blackwell and pension fund employees?

The whistleblower complaints have been vague and the censures only listed unprofessional and disrespectful behavior.

Whistleblower complaints from people like Julian Assange and WikiLeaks exposed US military crimes against civilians in Iraq. They usually involve criminal and financial crimes made by those in power.

One whistleblower case at the teachers pension fund that exposed financial fraud involved a current African American male fund employee who uncovered accounting irregularities that resulted in retaliation, according to the current lawsuit filed.

This complaint was against the management of the fund and not trustees. While Blackwell has focused on punishing trustees based on whistleblower complaints, are there also other complaints against the board's leadership team employed at the fund or even Blackwell himself? And if so, why has the board refused to take action against those people as well?  

According to Trustee Maria Rodriguez, there were a lot of whistleblower complaints made against the leadership team at the fund that have not been addressed. 

"During the last year and a half more than forty-one whistleblower complaints have been filed against the leadership team of the Chicago Pension," Rodriguez told the board at the September, 2020 meeting. "The whistleblower complaints filed by the workers have been completely neglected and no action has been taken by the full Board."

"Members are not receiving the same level of service they deserve and received in the past," she said. "I believe some of the statements made were only citing negativity toward other trustees."

In many instances members wait years to have their pensions finalized and instead receive an estimated pension. This information can be found in the board minutes under Report of Committee on Claims and Services Credit (Pensions Finalized).

The trustees Blackwell selected to prosecute have questioned the board and its employees and have voted against Blackwell many times. 

Can we say it's a political witch-hunt, and the term whistle blower has been twisted to protect those at the top against the people it is supposed to protect.