Bill Leibensperger's speech to STRS Board, November 15, 2007

Public Comment
November STRS Board Meeting

Good afternoon, President Chapman, Dr. Asbury, Board members, staff and guests. I am Bill Leibensperger, an active teacher in my 31st year in the system. I address you today in my capacity as spokesperson for the Health Care Advocates for STRS.

As you know, HCA is a coalition of the STRS stakeholder organizations. Through one or more of our member organizations, HCA represents all of the 400,000+ members of STRS.

Since HB 315 was introduced back in September, the bill has been assigned to the House's Financial Institutions, Real Estate and Securities Committee, known as the FIRES Committee. Our grassroots campaign is actively underway, and I want to thank the Board, the STRS staff and the HC Champions for your steadfast support of this healthcare funding initiative.

The STRS/HCA legislative team has been making the rounds and meeting with FIRES Committee members. In these meetings we've been hearing much of what we expected from our opposition, but we've also recently heard that Legislators are being told that STRS' need for increased contributions is the result of mismanagement at STRS. This news is alarming, not only because it sets up one more roadblock to accomplishing this legislation, but also because of the absence of facts to support such a charge.

There are several outside sources advancing this notion of STRS mismanagement - The Fordham Institute, chief among them. But HCA is concerned that one of the contributing factors to this ongoing specter of mismanagement surrounding STRS is a persistent focus on past ills by some of our own internal ranks. Such a focus damages the System's credibility and undermines our legislative efforts, not to mention that it is misguided and misdirected.

All of us who have been directly involved with STRS over the past 5-10 years know what our shred history is. We also know that the current STRS leadership and current Board have brought much needed and improved accountability to STRS. Today, STRS is a well-managed pension system and there is plenty of empirical evidence to prove it. Stirring up issues that suggest otherwise does our retirees and future retirees no good.

The fact of the matter is that when it comes to healthcare, STRS needs increased contributions because of a failed national healthcare policy and out-of-control escalation in health care costs, not because of any local, homegrown issues. To suggest otherwise is simply wrong.

No one in this room, or associated with STRS knows better than HCA what this System has been through; and no one knows better how truly changed, for the better, this System is. We may disagree over particular issues, but no one can accurately argue that this system is mismanaged.

HCA has faith in the STRS leadership and staff. We've worked closely with them for the past five years and we know them to be individuals of integrity and worthy of our trust. HCA will not break trust with the STRS staff over an occasional disagreement, for we know that these highly-skilled, talented professionals have the best interest of the System at heart, and that they are well-intentioned and working diligently on behalf of all of us - active teachers and retirees, educators and employers.

HCA expects today's Board to be more active, communicative and involved than Boards of the past - it's good business in today's environment of heightened public scrutiny. While we support the Board's critical role in providing oversight and appropriate checks and balances, we would not support Board action predicated on entrenching overly restrictive management policies.

We do not agree that each and every time the Board's oversight uncovers differences between STRS management and members of the Board, that strict reform measures must naturally follow. Personnel issues are not necessarily policy issues; and personnel issues should be dealt with in executive session - not center stage.

HCA believes that overly restrictive management policies suggest problems that do not exist and ultimately would be unsustainable over the long term. We would therefore urge you to reject motions put before you that are reactive and will neither translate into lasting improvements in management nor accurately reflect the strength of the system.

HCA believes that characterizing what could be genuine and legitimate differences between STRS management and the Board, or among Board members themselves, as evidence of ongoing mismanagement at STRS is hurtful to individuals, damaging to our organizational credibility and undermining of our HB 315 campaign.

HCA's purpose today is threefold:
.....1. To debunk rumors that HB 315 is needed due to mismanagement;
.....2. To stress the importance of rejecting overly restrictive management policies that suggest that fallacy; and
.....3. To express the need for this Board to provide a unified posture to the public. These three points seem to us inseparable in achieving our shared goal of providing a health care program for current and future retirees.

Thank you for your time and consideration.