RH Jones and Molly Janczyk re: Wachtmann, Schneider and our pension plans

From: Molly Janczyk

Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006
Subject: Watchman, Schnider: Private Pensions ARE Better

Wachtman and Schneider need to be under our plan after being promised their entire careers of a secure retirement with HC second to none. They should have to retire to find their benefits snatched from them and experience the devastation after irrevocable decisions. Their statements are heartless and cruel and completely dismissive of educators..

-------
From: RH Jones
Subject: Private Pensions ARE Better
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2006

To all:

State Sen. Lynn R. Wachtmann (R) is understating the facts when he says that our pensions are better that the private sector. An uncle of mine retired from Goodyear, my brother-in-law retired from GM, and a friend of mine retired from Firestone. Throughout their lives, all made were paid more than I, and now have retirement income (coupled with FULL Social Security) and full HC/Rx much better than mine. And, they get Compounded COLA's. Two, out of these three, had 8th grade educations. None of these three spent not a dime of their own money on a college education as we teachers did. They were earning money during the years we were paying tuition.

A retired cousin of mine who lives in a resort in Florida retired from AT&T. They paid for his college and gave him a great pension and full HC/Rx. GM also paid for my brother-in-law's 5-year college degree.

By our vote, isn't it time we retired politicians into the OPERS that have caused us our problems? We STRS members paid almost $6-million into OPERS for STRS employees last year. Over the years, if we had that money to invest, we would not have a need for the raise in employee/employer contribution today. Our STRS employees need to pay into STRS not OPERS.

Respect for education and educators by politicians is long overdue. The employer/employee contribution raise is long overdue.

By the way, the democratic politicians that I have talked to all have mentioned that they as a minority party can do nothing to introduce constructive education legislation for us. They all have tried. They first have to go to a GOP representative to co-sponsor it. Of course, co-sponsors are difficult to impossible to find. Oftentimes the Democrats are given new legislation at the last minute, making it impossible to read or study before the vote.

RHJones, retired STRS member