Dave Speas: A heads-up on the need for an emergency plan now

From Dave Speas, January 18, 2007

Subject: Re: STRS/CORE Meeting: 1/18/07

Hello,

Thank you for sending this information out to all of us. I was hoping to attend but Duane is out for tests and I was afraid I could not get back by 2 pm to greet the 125 children.

I may have missed it, but I did not see any discussion of an emergency plan if the stock market takes another plunge like the one in the beginning of this century. All the discussion going on now will be of no use if we have another loss for it will mean more than healthcare.

The current actives will lose not only healthcare along with us, but a lot of their retirement because cutbacks of large proportions will take place in the retirement plan. With the current actuarial use of over 4% used for growth of salaries and the reduction of the numbers of teachers paying into the account, drastic cuts will have to be made with another catastrophe like the one that caused us to lose our exceptional healthcare benefits.

All the discussions about travel expenses, meal money, hotel bills, and etc. will be moot subjects if we are not sufficiently prepared for a truly negative event. If there is a plan afloat, I would ask that the board members ask for a report about it so that we retirees who are working to protect the retirements of the current actives, as those retirees before us worked to protect our retirements, might know about the plan. All the talk about 5% for healthcare and the effort to secure it will be wasted effort if the emergency plan and the money to fund it are not in place.

Priorities must be made, and if the board in the 80's and 90's had taken the money used to raise retirements to 88%, 3% COLA's, and payment of the 13th check and etc. and used them to protect us from the stock market plunge after 9-11, the retirees of today would not be suffering the drastic cuts in healthcare.

All the other issues are important but without the protection of an emergency plan and the funds to implement it, the danger of what can be lost makes all else pale in comparison. What is the plan, how is it to be funded, what will it do, and what is needed from everyone to implement it? I am sorry but unless this is on the front burner, the rest of the issues may not even be in play in the very near future.

Dave Speas