RH Jones: 'Mysterious' ORC changes

From RH Jones, March 27, 2007
Subject: Re: The Ohio Administrative Code

Kathie and all:

The Canton Repository today, 03/27/07, has an article by Paul Kostyu (Pulitzer Prize nominee), "GOP still looking for chinks in new governor's armor."

In regard to changing the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) -- perhaps illegally -- I would like to add a quote from the above article: "Then we come to find Republicans regularly retrieved bills that had become law, even those with Taft's signature, to make changes." A few years back, Dr. K. Fluke and I took a whole day at the public library to research the ORC in two prestigious law texts to find data in the ORC3307 that applied to retiree Health Care (HC). The STRS Director of that time, Herb Dyer, and others, was contacted by both of us. I had also looked up the law on the Ohio ORC Web-site to find out similar conclusions of the ORC that we had found in the law texts. No response was received from STRS until a week or so afterwards. And, perhaps predictably, the law was now negative to our findings. The ORC had mysteriously changed.

Our data has been buried in a mass of papers that we both have gathered over the years. And, without a secretary, it would be extremely time consuming to dig the papers back out again. We had paid our dues to our associations to monitor such things. But they failed us. Tons of excuses poured forth from these unions. Good salaries had been paid to union employees to monitor the STRS, but they claimed that was not in their duties. CORE then came into being. At a CORE meeting, Dr. Fluke and I then made the CORE leadership, and the lawyer present, knowledgeable of our findings. Afterwards, not enough money could be raised by CORE to hire a powerful law firm to go to court. So the matter still stays unresolved. Fluke and I would like to ask: Where was the Health Care Advocates, the ORSC and OSBA on this, as well?

Fluke and I feel that all of us retirees before 1998 should be "grandfathered" with fully paid HC/Rx. That is where the fraud may come in. Pre-1998 retirees were disenfranchised. At that time, we also did not get the DROPbenefit, but Police/fire did. And, did you know, by law, the Police/fire receive a $400,000 bonus when they retire. That is almost 1/2 million dollars? That was in their ORC also. By the way, Dr. Damon Asbury, the present STRS CEO, was the Assistant CEO during 1998.

Perhaps the new Ohio administration through the new AG Ted Dann could look into the mysterious ORC changes? Let us hope.

RHJones, Asst. to Dr. Fluke who is Chair of the SummitCRTA leg. CMTE for more that 10-years.
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[From John Curry, March 27, 2007: Bob, I don't think this sentence is totally true. Not all police or fire are guaranteed 400K -- this depends on how much they deposited in the DROP fund after they retired. John

" And, did you know, by law, the Police/fire receive a $400,000 bonus when they retire."]

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From Molly Janczyk, March 27, 2007
Subject: Re: The Ohio Administrative Code

Bob, Please read the ORSC site info on pension systems. The law states STRS is allowed to change benefits at any time. Our STRS HC pamphlets say the same thing. Law is like the bible-any who read it can interpret it differently if we try. That is why we sat with the attorney early on and I believe you and Dr. Fluke were there. He is well versed in pension law and told us HC is not vested and the STRS is allowed by law to change benefits for HC based upon funding for pensions.

I, too, fought very hard for grandfathering on a multi-daily basis. Unfortunately, lack of planning made US the ones to save HC . Go to HC under OP&F, OPERS, STRS sites and you will see very different funding scenarios which I did send you and reasons for different contributions to HC fund and premium coverage. I too all that info directly from those sites.