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Ohio

Overview

Ohio sponsors five state retirement systems: the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (STRS OH); the Ohio Public Employees’ Retirement System (OPERS); the Ohio School Employees Retirement System (OH SERS); the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund; and the Ohio Highway Patrol Retirement System (OH HPRS).

OPERS administers retirement benefits for employees of the state and political subdivisions that have elected to participate who are not eligible to participate in another retirement plan. Each retirement system is responsible for managing its own assets.

The City of Cincinnati sponsors the sole local retirement system in Ohio.

Plan Design

Defined benefit plans are the primary retirement benefit for all state and local government employees in the state with the exception of OPERS participants hired since 2003 (excluding reemployed retirees and full-time law enforcement and public safety positions) and STRS OH participants hired since 2001, who may elect to participate in a DB-DC hybrid plan in lieu of the traditional defined benefit plan.

According to the US Government Accountability Office, substantially all employees of state and local government in Ohio do not participate in Social Security.

Access plan design detail

Authorizing Statutes and Board Structure

STRS OH: Ohio Revised Code Chapter 3307
OH PERS: Ohio Revised Code Title 1, Chapter 145
OH SERS: Ohio Revised Code Title 33, Chapter 3309
OH Police & Fire Pension Fund: Ohio Revised Title 7, Chapter 742
OH HPRS: Ohio Revised Code Title 55, Chapter 5505

Details regarding the composition of these and other retirement boards is accessible via the Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics search tool located at the bottom of this page.

Fiduciary Duty/Prudence Standard

All state retirement boards have the same statutory standard of care, as follows:

The board and other fiduciaries shall discharge their duties with respect to the funds solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries; for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries and defraying reasonable expenses of administering the system; with care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with these matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims; and by diversifying the investments of the system so as to minimize the risk of large losses, unless under the circumstances it is clearly prudent not to do so.

Legal Protections of Retirement Benefits

No explicit constitutional protection for public pension benefits. Courts will look to pension statutes to evaluate contract claims. Herrick v. Lindley, 391 N.E.2d 729 (Ohio 1979) (public employees retirement system retirees have a statutorily created vested right to receive a retirement allowance at the rate fixed by law when such benefit was conferred); State ex rei. Horvath v. State Teachers Retirement Bd., 697 N.E.2d 644 (Ohio 1998)(public school teachers do not possess contract rights in any retirement benefit unless and until benefit vests by operation of applicable statute). (OH CONST., Article II, §28) Source: Robert Klausner, Esq., State Constitutional Protections for Public Sector Retirement Benefits

See also the following search tools:

Retirement System Account Interest Policies Economic Actuarial Assumptions Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics
Information about interest rates applied to account balances of inactive plan participants Assumed rates of investment return and inflation Composition and characteristics of public retirement and investment oversight boards
Mortality Assumptions Plan Design Features Post-retirement Employment Policies
Public retirement system actuarial assumptions for mortality Numerous elements of retirement plan design Policies governing return-to-work for retirement system annuitants

More Data

Flag of Ohio (July 10, 1902)

Population (2025) 11,900,510

Ohio public pension statistics, per U.S. Census Bureau as of FY 2025

Assets

$238.7 billion

Active Members

673,309

Annuitants

504,136

Benefits Paid

$19.7 billion

Employee Contributions

$4.5 billion

Employer Contributions

$5.9 billion

Systems

Five state retirement systems that account for more than 99 percent of public pension assets and participants in the state; one local retirement system

Other Resources


Become A Member

Becoming a member of NASRA offers a unique opportunity to join a community committed to the sound, efficient, and innovative stewardship of public retirement systems. Membership connects you with a network of professionals and experts, providing valuable insights into managing public retirement systems with a focus on sustainability and risk-averse strategies.

By joining NASRA, you gain the tools and resources to enhance the management of public retirement systems, ensuring their long-term success and reliability for generations to come.

What's New at NASRA: Government Spending Issue Brief

NASRA’s March 2026 update on government spending makes a basic but important point: public pension benefits are not paid out of a government’s day-to-day operating budget. They are paid from trust funds that employees and employers contribute to during an employee’s working years. Those trusts distribute more than $400 billion each year to retirees and beneficiaries in communities across the country. On a national basis, employer contributions to pension trusts in FY 2023 equaled 5.16 percent of direct general spending by state and local governments, which shows that pension contributions remain a limited share of overall public spending even though the level varies from one state to another. 
The brief also shows that pension costs should be viewed in the context of the changes governments have made over the past 15 years to strengthen plan funding. Following the 2008–09 market decline, nearly every state and many local governments adjusted contributions, benefits, or both to improve pension sustainability. More recent data show that employer contributions increased from FY 2022 to FY 2023, but pension spending as a share of total government spending remained broadly stable. The updated brief provides FY 2023 figures and also projects the aggregate pension spending rate for FY 2024, offering a useful snapshot of both current costs and the longer funding trend.