Jim N. Reed to Rep. Stebelton and Sen. Schaffer re: Recent Legislation Cutting Retired Educators Off At The Knees!

From Jim N. Reed, June 25, 2007
Dear Representative Stebelton and Senator Schaffer
I do not know if you have educators in your families but I would hope you have researched carefully your reaction to the current General Assembly legislation that is misaimed at retirees in five Ohio pension systems.
A bill to make sacrificial patriots out of these retirees is so misguided that it actually should be an embarrassment to a majority of Ohio's lawmakers. As a constituent, I am counting on you to see through this fiasco that is putting the fiduciary responsibility of the STRS Board (as well as the other pension Boards) in jeopardy. ORC 3307.15 is crystal clear, much clearer than the fuzzy vision of legislators who see hundreds of thousands of Ohio's retired public servants as cherry-picking targets for wrong-headed, ill-defined patriotism.

Original HB 151 was so foolishly and hastily written that it was shameful. Companies that employ tens of thousands of Ohioans were black-listed. Cleveland was recruiting Rolls Royce to bring opportunity to an economically depressed area and then rookie members and the Speaker accused RR of being accomplices of the terrorists in Iran. Private investors, including sponsors of the legislation, were not required to divest in their portfolios. No private American investors, including governors, legislators, and presidents, had a legal mandate to force divestiture, only Ohio's retired public servants, many of whom are already caught in a crossfire of rising healthcare costs, stagnant COLA's, corporate greed, and mismanagement within their own retirement systems.

HB 152 sucks the lifeblood from current and retired educators. Once again, it appears private investment vultures are sitting on the side of the road ready to take advantage of the road kill resulting from the slaying of the "defined benefit" policy of STRS. This once-proud, prestigious retirement system has been the victim of scavengers before and cannot afford to be picked clean by ill-conceived legislation while it is laboring through a Renaissance under the leadership of Dr. Dennis Leone and Mr. John Lazares.

It seems that retired public servants are currently under siege within the General Assembly by some legislators who are out-of-touch with the mounting concerns accumulating upon the backs of many who seem to have become political pawns in a contest they did not conjure.

Representative Stebelton and Senator Schaffer, I ask you to consider carefully the damage that this model of legislation can bring to the retirement lives of many of Ohio's loyal public servants. I would also strongly encourage you to divest yourself from this kind of lawmaking.

Jim N. Reed
Concerned Ohio Retired Educator