The Connecticut state treasurer told beleaguered Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis on Tuesday she will be voting against his re-election at the bank's upcoming shareholder meeting.

Denise Nappier, who as state treasurer is the principal fiduciary of the $20 billion Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (CRPTF), said in a statement she will vote against Lewis, lead director O. Temple Sloan and chairman of the governance committee Tom Ryan, at the bank's meeting on April 29.

The board should also announce plans to substantially reconstitute itself before the next shareholder meeting, Nappier said.

Lewis and the Bank of America board he chairs have been under fire from shareholders since the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co in January, where soaring losses in the fourth quarter led the bank to take an additional $20 billion in taxpayer funds from the U.S. government.

Through Monday, shares in the bank have fallen 76 percent since Lewis announced the Merrill Lynch acquisition in September.

Investors have lost confidence in CEO Ken Lewis and the board of directors, said Nappier.

The CRPTF owns 3.2 million shares of Bank of America.

Other shareholders including Jonathan Finger and his father -- who sold Charter Bancshares Inc to Bank of America predecessor NationsBank in 1996 -- have called for Bank of America to split the chief executive and board chairman roles.

Two influential investor advisory groups, RiskMetrics Group Inc and Glass Lewis & Co, last week recommended Lewis be removed from the board.

The bank reported better-than-expected earnings on Monday but a large increase in troubled loans overshadowed high revenues from trading.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay, editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Tim Dobbyn)

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