COLUMBUS (WCMH) — The union representing non-teaching school employees in Ohio has filed suit against the School Employee Retirement System (SERS) over a three year freeze in cost of living adjustments for retirees. The freeze is set to take effect in March.

The suit, filed this week in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, claims the pension fund was mismanaged and invested too heavily in hedge funds with excessive management fees. The suit says over a 10 year period, the pension fund paid out more than $850 million dollars in fees to outside investment managers.

In response to the lawsuit, SERS issued a statement: “For nearly two years, SERS held several open meetings with representatives from all advocacy groups, including OAPSE, to discuss possible benefit changes and their effects on SERS and its membership. We modeled the effects of numerous combinations of changes before deciding on the COLA changes that were implemented. We are disappointed that OAPSE’s opposition to these changes was not registered during the open process when they could have been addressed with input from all interested parties.”

70 year old retiree Karen Holdridge says not getting a cost-of-living adjustment will make her tight budget even tighter.

“I just got a notification today that my rent’s going up again,” Holdridge said.

Holdridge drove a school bus for Columbus City Schools for almost 20 years. She says she now drives a hotel shuttle bus for minimum wage to help make ends meet.

“I was counting on a cost-of-living increase because everything is going up but my pension won’t be so I don’t know how I’m going to handle this,” Holdridge said.

Kathy Malone, spokeswoman for the Ohio Association of Public School Employees says its members are among the lowest paid of all state retirees.

“On average they make about $1,233 per month in retirement and they never made any money to begin with,” Malone said. “Our average salary for our members is $24,000 per year. They were counting on this money. They were counting on a COLA when they retired. They were made a promise and the promise is not being kept.”