Jim N. Reed's speech to STRS Board, November 15, 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Within this Boardroom I believe some unacceptable decision making has made a debacle of the basic principles of the Rules of Law known as Separation of Powers and its subsequent product, the Balance of Power. As though retirees have not had to swallow enough retirement system embarrassment and damage in the past ten years, we are currently witness to a Board-Executive Director assault on one of the most elementary and crucial tenets of policy making and its administration.

What is clearly written as STRS Board Policy has been effectively annulled by this Administration and voting members of this Board. By tabling Dr. Leone's motion with Mr. Lazares' second, this Board questions its own viability to conduct business in the best interest of more than 400,000 stakeholders and to carry out its legal responsibilities as designated in ORC 3307.15.

I would strongly encourage this Board to re-examine, reconsider and unanimously support the five issues as proposed in Dr. Leone's original motion from last month. It behooves you to do so in the spirit of the Rule of Law and in the moral and ethical obligation you have to provide a performance compatible with your oath of office.

By the accounting of the Board's own records, this administration has apparently usurped authority from the elected and appointed representatives of active and retired educators. Consequently, as constituents we have been adversely affected by this legislative submission. This appears to be a blatant trampling of a basic right owned by members of this retirement system, the right to have our pension funds protected and expended for our benefit. Your tabling and argumentative position on these issues indicates contempt for the process that protects the career investments 400,000 educators have in their retirement system.

We cannot any longer afford, figuratively or literally, to have our caretakers shirk their duty by a shameful negligence to adhere completely to ORC 3307.15 and to comply with the basic Rule of Law principles. In our struggle to return trust, confidence and security to STRS Ohio it is mandatory that there be a Board rejection of "business as usual." The decade-old entitlement philosophy must go. Retirees, prospective and current, may not survive a dejà vu all over again!

In 2008 Your Ohio STRS Ohio Health Care Plan Options booklet suggests there are "Other steps you can take to manage your health include reducing stress levels…"

I would suggest reducing stress and health care options amount to a kind of oxymoron. Included among other booklet promises is, "We provide you and your family (spouse) access to quality health care coverage…but spouses pay the full cost of the health care premium." (A Non Medicare spouse premium can be over $8000, and even a Medicare-age spouse over $3600 annually.) Stress level reduction is challenged with annual premiums for many families going from less than $500 to nearly $10,000 within the last ten years!

With the prominent practice of paying bonuses to staffers in insurance companies' Cancellation Departments for all the "rescissions" they can produce and to hard working claims rejection specialists, the average retiree is continually living, or dying, on the edge.

It appears the lifespan of the Health Care Promise heard by hundreds of thousands was nearly DOA. From 1974 through the 1990s the affordable, second-to-none health care package gave many educators the hope of a secure retirement. A lack of foresight and a shameful and abusive mismanagement of pension funds provided only a false positive for those who followed into retirement in the new millennium.

If I sound quite sensitive to the dilemma of my profession's retiree health care status, it's because I am, but I'm certainly not alone. As a stakeholder, I'm sensitive to being misinformed, misguided and sacrificed by past caretakers, and I'm sensitive to any arrogant, frivolous or unsubstantiated expenditure of current funds by the present Board and/or Executive Director.

This sensitivity allows for no tolerance for fiscal misconduct, regardless of the amount. It has no tolerance for entitlement. It expects total transparency, especially when it is being maligned as micromanagement. Hundreds of thousands of retirees should expect no less and demand sincerity and execution of another promise in the recently mailed STRS health care booklet, "We focus on you and your family's unique needs after you have finished your teaching career."