FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 14, 2026

Contact: Michael Clauw, mclauw@campaignforaccountability.org, 202.780.5750

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Campaign for Accountability sent a letter to the State Financial Officer’s Foundation (SFOF), urging it to remove Board President Seth Metcalf from his position. Court records reveal Mr. Metcalf engaged in a years’ long effort to induce the Ohio State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) to hire his unqualified company, QED Systemic Solutions, LLC (QED) to manage nearly 70% of the pension fund’s assets. The letter explains Mr. Metcalf’s actions are incompatible with a leadership role in organization dedicated to sound public financial stewardship.

Read CfA’s letter.

CfA executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said, “The Ohio attorney general and an Ohio court have stated that Seth Metcalf engaged in secret communications with STRS board members trying to secure $65 billion of STRS’ funds to his company’s control, against the advice of independent financial advisers. Given these circumstances, it is hard to understand how SFOF – an organization focused on fiscal responsibility – has allowed Metcalf  to remain board president.

In May 2024, Ohio Attorney General David Yost filed suit against two STRS board members—Wade Steen and Rudy Fichtenbaum—alleging they breached their fiduciary duties by attempting to redirect approximately $65 billion of the pension fund’s $91 billion portfolio to QED, Mr. Metcalf’s two-person firm with no clients, no track record, no SEC or FINRA registration, and no ownership of the technology it claimed to deploy.

After STRS staff filed a whistleblower complaint, the board hired an independent adviser to conduct due diligence on QED. The adviser warned STRS against QED because of its unconventional investment strategies and a “lack of any performance track record.”  Some STRS board members nevertheless continued to advocate for QED, with Mr. Metcalf pulling the levers behind the scenes. Court records show that Mr. Metcalf ghostwrote board memos and talking points for Mr. Steen and Mr. Fichtenbaum, coached Mr. Steen in real time during board meetings, and received confidential STRS materials from Mr. Steen. QED and its allies also ran a retaliatory “smear campaign” against STRS staff who opposed the bid.

On February 19, 2026, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Karen Held Phipps ruled that Mr. Steen and Mr. Fichtenbaum had acted as agents for QED, Metcalf, and his partner Jonathan Tremmel — at best, following their directions, and “at worst, [acting as] mere puppets.” The court found the board members breached their duties to act solely in STRS members’ interests.

Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, a member of SFOF, has been critical of QED’s attempt to secure STRS’s business, telling a reporter that he agreed with the court’s ruling.

This is not the first time CfA has questioned SFOF’s credibility. In 2024, CfA asked the SEC to investigate whether donations to SFOF violated the agency’s pay-to-play prohibition on political contributions by certain investment advisers.

Campaign for Accountability is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog organization that uses research, litigation, and aggressive communications to expose misconduct and malfeasance in public life and hold those who act at the expense of the public good accountable for their actions.