Jim Reed to Ann Hanning re: ORTA, Dr. Leone, CORAS, and Snowbirds

From Jim N. Reed, April 6, 2007
Subject: ORTA, Dr. Leone, CORAS, and Snowbirds

Dear Ms. Hanning,

In his recent letter to ORTA Mr. Thomas Curtis challenged your organization to perform an introspection, a self-appraisal of its charter and current purpose for existence. His criticism of your decision not to publish STRS Board member Dr. Dennis Leone in ORTA's just-released newsletter is well founded.

Mr. Curtis is one of the most respected and well-versed charter members of Concerned Ohio Retired Educators and a lifetime member of ORTA. He has worked tirelessly and effectively to inform Ohio's active and retired teachers of the performance, or lack of, among those organizations that portend to advocate for all educators.

STRS and ORTA are at the top of that list and rightfully targeted. What organizations should be further out front in providing the leadership necessary to provide and protect an affordable and secure retirement for every career educator? If, as retired educators, we can not look to our 87-year-old retirement system and 60-year-old teacher organization for that leadership and protection, what a shameful state of affairs.

When ORTA opted not to publish Dr. Leone's STRS Board quarterly summary, a message of disrespect, disregard, and disconnect was sent to retirees. Those knowledgeable of Dr. Leone's 2003 award-winning research, exposing the greed and corruption within the Boardroom, and subsequent insistence on policy change must regard ORTA's decision as inexcusable and offensive.

Any individual or organization representing Ohio educators who remains ignorant of Dr. Leone's comprehensive investigative reports, using fact and figures from STRS's own public records, can offer only phantom leadership. Such ignorance should abdicate even a pretense of leadership and clear the path for continued reform ignited by Dr. Leone. Too many prospective and current retirees' well-being is at stake and they deserve no less.

Not only should Dr. Leone's article have been published but ORTA needs to rectify its abstinence of support for the STRS Board leadership of Dr. Leone (and Mr. John Lazares.) ORTA's silence in supporting, encouraging, and recognizing their leadership is deafening!

(Is it any wonder that ORTA's county affiliates are as ineffectual and out-of-touch as many are? Many have become no more than afternoon tea parties.. Many are social clubs that have no concept of what has happened to their profession's retirement system and, worse, have no understanding of how it has, or will, negatively impact their families' security.)

Risking breaking a questionable publishing principle, it should be noted that two days ago Ohio University at Chillicothe released an announcement of the awarding of a distinguished "Leadership Award" to Dr. Dennis Leone by 100 public school and college administrators (Coalition of Rural Appalachian Schools).

How can it be that, once again, Dr. Leone's leadership of an STRS Renaissance can go unnoticed by ORTA? Not only has his past meritorious recognition been slighted, his current efforts to educate stakeholders of relevant STRS policy changes (via ORTA publications) been rejected, but new honors (CORAS) will more than likely go unrecognized (perhaps because of journalism's prohibition on publishing cold material.)

Finally, I wonder how many recipients of a recent ORTA-endorsed solicitation from Medical Air Services Association (MASA) questioned this disconnect? This "premiere emergency assistance provider" offers a "Platinum Membership" for about $400 per year for family protection. (This insurance is offered for emergency travel during times of medical alert.)

Granted, there are people who may find this kind of care advantageous but there are so many more retirees who are forced to cancel a regular physician's appointment or who find pill-splitting and generic medication insufficient to keep them from healthcare disaster.

One of MASA's customer testimonials suggests, "...any snowbird who does not join...is stupid." How many of our colleagues have been placed in dire jeopardy of losing their deserved, earned, everyday healthcare by unprepared, uncaring, disconnected STRS decision makers and ORTA's reticence to be critical? Snowbird concerns?

Can ORTA not provide a better service to its retirees by insisting that its retirement system and its own leadership recognize the real-life needs of its members and publicly salute those who have demanded and effected change to assist in meeting those needs?

Jim N. Reed