Paul Boyer's letter to Judge Reece

November 5, 2005

Judge Guy L. Reece, II
Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, General Division
369 S. High Street
Columbus, OH 43215-7A

Dear Honorable Judge Reece:

I am 80 years old, retired from school teaching since 1960 and a member of the Ohio State Teachers Retirement System. I am also one of five persons named as CORE of the CORE, Concerned Ohio Retired Educators because of my involvement in the group. We have been working for almost three years to straighten up the STRS after Dr. Dennis Leone, Superintendent, Chillicothe Public Schools, uncovered evidences of drastic misuse of our retirement funds by the then Executive Director and members of the board. I have also been chairman of a special CORE committee that has met with Dr. Asbury, Executive Director of STRS, on a monthly or bi-monthly basis to talk face to face about changes we felt were necessary.

Our first action was to force the resignation of Mr. Dyer, the fast spending Executive Director, who wrote in reply to a letter from a retiree, “You must realize that this money does not belong to Medicare or to you, but to the Board to spend as they see fit” (paraphrased). This is totally in conflict with the Ohio Revised Code for STRS.

One of the things we early on strongly objected to was the paying of bonuses to employees who were not actually buying and selling securities. They were all being paid huge salaries and then bonuses for simply performing their work. There was never any kind of a contract for them to be paid these bonuses and STRS Board decided at the end of 2003 not to pay the bonuses to these employees.

Since I retired in 1960, our free Health Care insurance is now costing me a great deal of money, we lost the 13th check, and our annual COLA is based on our original monthly benefit, not cumulative. Have any of us sued? No.

All of this leads me to wonder, Judge, how you could render the recent judgment which mandates payment of these bonuses and exorbitant legal fees of the plaintiffs. Please review and reconsider your decision.

Sincerely,

Paul L. Boyer