Pension board chairwoman refused request from Burgum’s office to resign amidst budget bill lawsuit

BISMARCK — The chairwoman of the board of the North Dakota Public Employees Retirement System refused a request from the governor’s chief of staff to resign, a request made in the midst of a lawsuit that has thrown the state into budgetary chaos.

Mona Tedford Rindy said she refused the request from Gov. Doug Burgum’s chief of staff, Jace Beehler, to resign from the board.

The resignation request was made in a phone call on Friday, Sept. 22, and in a follow-up email Beehler sent to Tedford Rindy on Saturday, Sept. 23 —

just days before the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, Sept. 28, that a major appropriations bill was invalid,

requiring legislators to reconvene in a special session.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Public Employees Retirement System. The suit challenged a law that added more members to the PERS board, including two more legislative members, giving legislators four of 11 board seats.

“I refused to resign,” Tedford Rindy told The Forum on Thursday, Sept. 28. “It’s certainly not my intent to resign at this time.”

In Beehler’s email, he told Tedford Rindy her “resignation is being requested as a change in direction is sought for the PERS board due to the significant changes and large tasks ahead of the board and to fulfill the laws as intended by the 68th legislative assembly.”

When asked to comment on the resignation request, Burgum’s spokesman, Mike Nowatzi, echoed Beehler’s reasons as given in the email but did not elaborate.

Tedford Rindy, whom Burgum appointed to the board in 2020 and whose term expires in 2025, told The Forum that she believes the request for her to resign was motivated by the PERS lawsuit over adding more legislators to its board, which she said violates separation of powers.

“That’s the issue,” she said, although she added that she doesn’t know the governor’s reasoning.

Tedford Rindy said she believes the request for her to resign was to make it possible for a new board to withdraw the PERS lawsuit, which would have made the issue moot, avoiding the Supreme Court ruling invalidating the major appropriations bill.

“I am aware that some legislators have been displeased with my strictly carrying out my fiduciary duty of not interfering with a suit that had already been filed,” she said. A fiduciary responsibility is a duty to act in the best interests of those you serve.

She said she was also aware that some legislators, whom she declined to name, also had called the governor’s office to express their displeasure over the issue.

“The purpose of the suit that the PERS board filed was to assert that there was a violation of the separation of powers,” she said. “That is the question that the PERS board put to the Supreme Court.”

Tedford Rindy believes the request for her to resign was “because I have voted to maintain that the legislators have a conflict of interest on the PERS board. My assumption is to remove me and to replace me with someone who would vote differently. The only logical reason I can come up with why the governor wanted me to resign is in order to replace me with someone who would vote in line with the legislators’ agenda.”

The appropriations bill included an amendment altering the composition of the PERS board, which is why the appropriations bill was before the Supreme Court.

In addition to the lawsuit over board membership, Miller and the PERS board clashed with legislators earlier this year over changes made to the pension system for state employees.

In the August PERS board meeting, the board voted 4 to 3 that legislators serving on the board had a conflict of interest regarding the lawsuit, according to board minutes.

All three members who voted no were among Burgum’s most recent board appointees, a group that included two additional legislators.

Tedford Rindy, who lives in Portland, North Dakota, spent her career working as a trust officer at banks.

“I take my fiduciary responsibility very seriously,” she said.

Patrick Springer first joined The Forum in 1985. He covers a wide range of subjects including health care, energy and population trends. Email address: pspringer@forumcomm.com
Phone: 701-367-5294