The State Teachers Retirement System has spent more than $2 million in tuition reimbursements to its employees since 1999, double what Ohio's four other pension systems have spent combined.

Retired Chillicothe schools Superintendent Dennis Leone, a critic of the STRS, said the disparity is further evidence that the pension fund's administrators "don't have a lick of sense."

Damon Asbury, STRS executive director, said he and the board have gone to great lengths to withdraw or reduce some of the employee benefits. But he defended the tuition reimbursement policy, noting employees must take courses to improve or acquire skills necessary for their jobs.

Asbury also disputed the contentions of some retirees that STRS employees have seen no increase in their health care premiums in recent years.

"Our associates have stepped up and increased their premium costs," he said. "They went from paying essentially nothing to almost 20 percent of the premium."

Leone and Tom Curtis, a retired industrial-technology teacher from Canton, chafe at other benefits STRS provides to employees, including a 371/2-hour workweek, a stipend of up to $5,000 a year for each child they adopt and subsidized child care.

STRS previously paid about $500,000 a year to defray employees' child-care costs. After retirees complained, administrators cut that benefit to about $190,000, which the 56 employees who use the onsite child-care facility are "repaying" by giving up two vacation days and workinguncompensated overtime.

Asbury said STRS began offering the adoption subsidy in 1997 at the request of the late Dave Thomas, an adoptee who later founded the Wendy's hamburger chain. STRS spokeswoman Laura Ecklar said four employees have received a total of $16,073 in adoption payments since then.

As for the 371/2-hour work week, Asbury said it's a practice that goes back many years. He said it will be examined in an audit to be completed early next year.