Tom Curtis' speech to STRS 12/08/05: A plea for grandfathering of Health Care benefits

Good afternoon board members, executive staff and guests. My name is Thomas Curtis. I am speaking today on behalf of CORE, all STRS retirees who are wondering what their financial future will hold for them and their non-teaching spouse and myself. I am an STRS disability retiree with 27 years of service. I am a life member of CORE, ORTA, Stark Co. RTA and the AARP.

After starting college, my father, also an educator suggested that I too consider training to become a teacher. His 3 incentives for recommending such were that one, I could retire after 30 years of service. He said that would qualify me for two more benefits that were second to none and very important for a sound financial future. He told me about the State Teachers Retirement System and how it was a system set-up by educators to provide a guaranteed pension and a health care benefit for both a teacher and their spouse for the rest of their lives. That is exactly what he and my mother received.

I asked him who would pay for this? He said my employer and I would be making contributions into the STRS throughout my career, which would in turn fund these two benefits.

I would hear that same information from many others in the profession during my career. I would hear that promise from our local and state OEA union representatives, each time we renewed a contract. No, we were not getting much of a raise, but we were reminded of what was in store for us and our spouse when we retired, the benefit of a guaranteed pension and health care coverage second to none, for the rest of our lives.

In my mind, the promises of these two benefits were what kept me in education. The discipline in my school continued to erode and the students I was getting placed in my shop classes were inattentive and had little desire to learn how to work with their hands. Behavior modification became the daily task. I found myself in a shop full of students with uncontrollable behavior problems and probably the highest liability of any teacher in my high school. The continued stress of that liability caused me to leave my profession 3 years earlier then I had planned.

Near the end of my career I figured up what I would make at the end of 30 years. It was going to be just a few dollars more then one million dollars. WOW! Did I believe that to be a good wage, not really compared to what I could have made in industry? However, the retirement benefit "carrot" that was held out in front of every educator was what we believed we would have at retirement.

After meeting with an STRS retirement counselor and understanding what I would receive if I chose to retire, I made the decision to retire.

In 1998, I was thankfully granted a disability retirement pension and the health care benefits I had been told about and read about in STRS literature for my entire career.

And now for the rest of the story. No sooner had I retired, when I noticed my health care costs started to rise and the rest is history. In 2004 the spousal subsidy I was told by the STRS counselor I would have for the rest of my life, was totally taken away, as it was for many other retirees in my same situation. You see my wife was not a teacher, so we had to start paying 100% of the cost of her health care insurance. That is because those of us that had already committed to retirement were not considered for a "grandfathering" of the benefits we were told we would have at retirement. That is exactly what OPERS has done for their retirees and I believe others have done so as well.

Retirees are now paying for health care insurance we thought we paid for through our contributions throughout our career, only to find we have to pay for it again. We are now paying for health care coverage for those that will benefit from the increased index changes in SB190, which we do not benefit from, if we retired prior to January 2000.

So, I am asking each of you board members to please consider a "grandfathering" of the health care benefits for those of us retirees that were promised such and then had them revoked and asked to pay for them again. Thank you for your consideration of a grandfathering of benefits for those in much need of them.