At a recent monthly meeting of the state’s police pension board, the only sign of GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei was his nameplate in the corner of a meeting table.
Mazzei last attended a meeting in April 2025, right around the time he kicked off his campaign for governor.
His meeting absences go back farther. Since Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Mazzei to the Oklahoma Police Pension and Retirement Board in March 2023, Mazzei has missed three-fourths of the meetings. He’s made just 10 of the 40 monthly meetings since joining the board.
The missed pension board meetings would typically be just a curiosity or blamed on a busy campaign schedule. But Mazzei’s public and professional life has been dominated by financial management. He was chairman of a budget committee and the chief architect of pension reforms during his 12-year tenure as a senator in the Legislature. Mazzei was Stitt’s budget secretary for 18 months. Professionally, he founded a Tulsa financial planning company, helping grow it into a firm managing $1.5 billion in assets.
Mazzei missed hundreds of votes as a state senator in the years after a catastrophic car accident in 2008. He’s spoken several times on the gubernatorial campaign trail and in campaign ads about his faith and resilience in recovering from that car crash.
“It’s not something I like to talk about,” Mazzei said in a video posted May 1 to his campaign Facebook site. “I’m back to my old self and I can do all the things I used to do, except swing a golf club, which might be a good thing. It’s an expensive sport.”
The 13-member police pension board has six members elected to three-year terms by active police officers across the state. Retired police officers elect one board member. The other six are appointed to four-year terms by various officials, including the governor, House speaker and Senate president pro tempore.
The board oversees the nearly $4 billion police pension system. Its other duties include approving new members, paying death benefits and deciding on disability cases for officers injured in the line of duty.
After providing an initial response, Mazzei’s campaign did not respond to follow-up questions about his meeting attendance. A communications advisor, Jahan Wilcox, accused Oklahoma Watch of manufacturing a controversy. Wilcox previously worked for Scott Pruitt when he headed the Environmental Protection Agency in the first Trump administration.
“This is an unpaid, volunteer position, and upon becoming a candidate for governor, Mike Mazzei offered to step down but agreed to remain only until a replacement was selected if his financial expertise was needed,” said the written statement sent by Wilcox but attributed to Carissa Mazzei, a campaign spokeswoman.
Ginger Sigler, the pension system’s executive director, said any action regarding board members would have to be initiated by the board.
“I think it’s the duty of any board member to come to meetings,” Sigler said. “I totally understand that he is running for governor and he doesn’t have time. I don’t think he would be opposed to being replaced, but I also don’t think it’s his position to go to the governor and say, ‘Replace me.’”
Chris Cook, the board chairman, said there is no board policy about meeting attendance. He said he hasn’t had any conversations with either Mazzei or Stitt about the absences.
“He is the governor’s appointee, so it would be up to the governor to make a change,” Cook said. “We have certain people that are gone from time to time. I think we all know why he’s been gone a lot, because he’s running for governor. Again, it’s up to the governor if he wants to keep him on the board or not.”
Stitt’s office did not answer questions about Mazzei’s police pension board service or replacing him on the board. Deputy Chief of Staff Abegail Cave instead emailed a general statement praising Mazzei’s senate record and his service to the pension board.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
