Jim N. Reed's message to Ohio General Assembly: "I would strongly encourage you to divest yourself of this kind of lawmaking"

Why did Ohio lawmakers decide to pick on retirees?

Columbus Dispatch, July 14, 2007

I do not know how many lawmakers in the General Assembly have educators in their families, but I would hope they have all researched carefully and intelligently their reaction to the current legislation that is misaimed at retirees in Ohio's five public-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, regardless of political party. As constituents, we public servants are counting on our representatives and senators to have the vision to see through this fiasco that is putting the fiduciary responsibility of the State Teachers Retirement System Board (as well as the other four boards) in jeopardy. Ohio Revised Code 3307.15 is crystal clear, much clearer than the fuzzy vision of some legislators who see hundreds of thousands of Ohio's public servants, active and retired, as cherry-picking targets for wrong-headed, ill-defined patriotism.

The original House Bill 151 was so foolishly, haphazardly and hastily designed that it was shameful. Companies that employ tens of thousands of hard-working Ohioans were black-listed. Cleveland has been recruiting Rolls Royce to bring employment opportunity to an economically depressed area, and then rookie members and the House Speaker accused Rolls Royce of being accomplices of the terrorists in Iran.

Private investors, including sponsors of the misguided legislation, were not required to divest their portfolios. Other private American investors, including governors, lawmakers and presidents were not ordered to practice divestiture; only Ohio's retired public servants, many of whom already are caught in the crossfire of rising health-care costs, stagnant cost-of-living adjustments, corporate greed and mismanagement within their own retirement systems, received marching orders to divest, costing them millions of dollars.

House Bill 152, meanwhile, sucks the lifeblood from current and retired educators. Once again, it appears private investment vultures practicing predatory capitalism are sitting on the side of the road ready to take advantage of the roadkill 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 Dennis Leone and 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.

I ask our honorable and wise General Assembly members to consider carefully and judiciously the damage and hostility 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 of this kind of lawmaking.

JIM N. REED
Baltimore