State senator calls for inquiries into TRS practices
Just days after lambasting the Teacher Retirement System of Texas over its aborted plan to lease office space in the luxury Indeed Tower high-rise under construction in downtown Austin, state Sen. John Whitmire is calling for inquiries into the agency’s real estate investment practices.
Separately, a person with direct knowledge of the matter has told the American-Statesman that executives of the retirement system have privately revealed to lawmakers that TRS owns a large stake in the building, a disclosure aimed at blunting some of the criticisms of the $326,000-a-month starting office rent — or $3.9 million annually — the agency agreed to pay there.
Whitmire, D-Houston, declined to say if he has been briefed by TRS officials regarding the Indeed Tower ownership position. But he said he was dissatisfied by the public testimony of TRS Executive Director Brian Guthrie about the lease during a hearing this week before the Senate Finance Committee, on which Whitmire serves.
“He danced around whatever he knows and could not discuss,” Whitmire said. “I don’t play games, and I think they ought to quit playing games and work in the direction of being transparent and disclosing everything they can” to retirees.
Read more: https://www.statesman.com/business/20200227/state-senator-calls-for-inquiries-into-trs-practices
