Tom Curtis' speech to STRS Board December 14, 2006 and January 18, 2007

[This speech was delivered in two parts since Tom was unable to deliver it all within the required three minute time limit and was not permitted to speak longer than the allotted time.]

(Introductory remarks)

The STRS management team has often stated its desire to hire the very best employees it can find.

I guess that kind of thinking would justify the recent STRS expenditure of $315,000 to hire an outside firm to find 3 real estate investors for a department that represents only about 8% of our holdings. My point is this: doesn’t everyone desire to hire the very best employee, or elect the most-qualified candidate? Well, not exactly!

I have been highly involved in the past three STRS elections. In my opinion, the STRS management team, the leadership of both teachers unions, the OEA & the OFT, and the state superintendent appear to have little concern about the necessary qualifications of the board members elected or appointed to represent them on this board.

Qualifications needed by a board member to even nominally understand what the STRS management is presenting to them on a monthly basis seems to be totally overlooked here. The pervasive attitude of many of our past and present board members is to allow the STRS management make most of the decisions. Why, because you are often not qualified to weigh in on those decisions, but are too proud to admit it. So you simply vote “yes” on most management requests. Such lack of concern on your part makes no sense. This is the tail wagging the dog, and you are allowing it to happen. Some of you were elected to this board due to nothing but politics. That does not and is not getting the job done here, or at the state level.

The voters have spoken in this state. Where will our beloved watchdogs, Jim Petro and Betty Montgomery, be come 2007? Finally they will both be out on the street where they belong.

There are two individuals sitting on this board who had the courage, knowledge and clout to bring many of the STRS spending abuses to light, when very few teachers had that ability. The teachers unions and other teacher representative groups sat by and did little, if anything, to bring these abuses to light. CORE was the only group to support the efforts of these two.

Dr. Leone and John Lazares possess a far greater knowledge and experience base from having been superintendents for many years and dealing in the financial operation of schools, letting of contracts, the legal ramifications of such and managing people than most of the rest of you combined. They have attempted to communicate to you the significance of just what you are voting for each month, but due to the politics and sheer ignorance involved here, some of you are unwilling to listen to their recommendations. This is truly alarming, because the future of this retirement system is very fragile in that it probably will not be able to meet the pensions it is obligated for in the not-too-distant future.

However, you are very willing to listen to the recommendations of the executive director, when he should be listening to yours. All of the very same senior staff members who have managed this retirement system foolishly and misspent our funds are still HERE, with the exception of Herb Dyer. Our prior board awarded him more than half a million dollars to step down. This very same management team has paid out billions of dollars to outside firms simply to acquire reports that confirm and agree to the gross misspending and neglect of our funds. God, please help us all!

Madame Chair, you embarrassed not only yourself, but educators as a whole with your insulting remarks in the newspaper about Dr. Leone. You were totally out of line with every comment you made in your statement to that reporter. To my knowledge, you also have yet to offer any kind of apology to Dr. Leone. I believe you owe him this, and I will continue to ask for one until you issue such, or step down from this board.

Board members, many of your votes make absolutely no sense to me, considering the gross misspending of teachers’ funds that the STRS management has perpetrated in the past and to this very day.

The continued gross misspending becomes even more absurd, because it is my understanding that our true unfunded liability is at “INFINITY,” not at 47 years as presented last month by Ms. Nichol, the representative from the expensive outside accounting and consulting firm.

This point was brought to light by Dr. Leone’s questions and confirmed by Ms. Nichol, to my understanding. It would appear to me that few, if any of you other board members seem to have even been aware of this. The annual increase of teacher salaries is nowhere close to 4.5%, which is the figure used to determine the 47-year unfunded liability. Each one of you now knows this and should be grappling with the need to tighten the expenditures of this management team. Or are you simply going to ignore this dire situation and continue to let Damon Asbury mislead you?

From what I read in the board minutes, this board continues, by a majority vote, to rubber stamp most of Damon Asbury’s spending requests. Further, you continue to allow this type of misleading information to go out in the STRS Newsletter and the membership has no other choice then to think all is well, when it absolutely is not. Please wake up and start weighing your decisions based on information from those on this Board who can be trusted, not the STRS management team. It’s time for the dog to start wagging the tail, not the other way around. Thank you.

[Some statistics: To deliver this speech in its entirety, it required approximately eight hours of driving time on Tom's part; approximate mileage of 554.4 miles and approximately $55.42 (maybe more) for gas, paid out-of-pocket. KBB]