CalPERS hired a CEO without a college degree. Now the public pension fund is explaining why

The Sacramento Bee reports:

Marcie Frost did not claim to have a college degree when she applied to lead the California Public Employees’ Retirement System in 2016. She emphasized it in blue ink, writing “not degreed yet” in a box that asked about her education.

But two years after she got the job, Frost is under fire with a financial blogger alleging that she mischaracterized her education in her application and in a subsequent press release by implying she was further along in obtaining a degree than she actually was.

The report from blogger Susan Webber now is raising questions among retirees who are learning for the first time that the CalPERS chief executive officer did not graduate from college. Webber’s reporting this year has already led CalPERS to oust a chief financial officer and she has a dedicated readership among people who pay close attention to the fund.

“We are surprised. You just assume in today’s market if you’re going to be CEO of the nation’s largest retirement system that you’d have some kind of degree,” said Tim Behrens, president of California State Retirees. He added, “I don’t think anything happened badly because of her lack of a degree.”

The questions date back to the CalPERS Board of Administration’s decision in 2016 to select Frost as the successor to Anne Stausboll. Board members said they chose Frost because of her commitment to engaging with retirees and public employers, as well as her track record leading Washington state’s public pension fund, the $90 billion Department of Retirement Systems.

CalPERS did not list a college degree as a necessary qualification for the job when it began searching for Stausboll’s successor. Frost said she told the board and a headhunting firm that she was interested in pursuing degrees at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, but board members did not ask her to complete a program when they hired her.

Frost, 54, said her career accelerated first in Washington state and then at CalPERS since she first took classes at Evergreen in 2010. She did not enroll in a class after that year, although she said she still intends to complete a degree some day.

They sure have high standards in California!