Donna Seaman with a reminder to Mr. Nehf and STRS Board: You are to oversee and manage those funds, not consume them!

From Donna Seaman, November 3, 2008
Subject: incentive bonuses

To STRS board and Mr. Nehf:

We continue to be frustrated and alarmed about STRS spending, starting, certainly, with the inappropriate $6 million in bonuses paid to investment staff, and revealed in detail in Sunday's Columbus Dispatch. Hopefully you have noted from that article that the other four Ohio investment funds do not spend millions in incentive bonuses like STRS does!

It shouldn't be up to us retirees to remind you of your function: To oversee the management of STRS funds. You are not to be consumers of those funds! The STRS pot of money was generated totally by Ohio teachers. It should and must be returned to Ohio teachers! We are the lawful beneficiaries!

Yes, we retired teachers made the conscious choice to be teachers, not investment counselors, trusting that STRS staff and board would be responsible, ethical, and honest caretakers of our retirement funds. You, board members and Mr. Nehf, are failing in this duty! You are instead spending those funds frivolously and exorbitantly, refusing to tighten STRS belts even in this time of national (indeed worldwide) financial crisis.

Please do not continue to spin your propaganda which tries to justify incentive bonuses. We are highly educated, professional educators who understand money, and can add and subtract. Give us credit for being able to understand and interpret your hyperbole when we read it in your statements! (drafted by spin doctor extraordinaire Laura Ecklar?)

We, again, await your response!
Donna Seaman (2002 retiree) and Dean Seaman (1986 retiree)