Tom Curtis: Letter to STRS Board

From Tom Curtis, December 9, 2008
Subject: 120908 Curtis To STRS Board

Board members,

As time passes, it becomes blatantly clear to many stakeholders that all but one of you cannot make a decision unless someone else (management) makes it for you. You obviously are not listening to your stakeholders and the people that support our schools, the taxpayer.

This indecisiveness continues to substantiate my statement to many of you personally. You do not have an adequate background and the knowledge about business and finance to be on the STRS board. It also appears that you do not even possess good common sense. Tough times call for tough decisions and none of you seem to have the heart for it.

It is worth expressing once again; the majority of you are there because two unions, the OEA/OFT personally and financially backed your election, which resulted in your being elected. You did not and would not have been elected to a board based upon your credentials. This is a very sad scenario and has cost our pension fund dearly for many decades now.

The apathy of most educators, concerning the election of our board members and the operation of the STRS, has placed our pension system at the doorstep of possible extinction for those actives in the profession.

With few stakeholders' realizing it, our health care stabilization fund is probably near extinction, at this very date. When that is gone, how much stress will that place on those who depend on that health care system for their only possible medical care existence?

That possible result can be squarely attributed to the lack of leadership and vision of the OEA. Their elected representatives, who have held the majority vote on the STRS board for decades, have failed to find the dedicated flow of income needed to support the health care stabilization fund. Collectively, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of our funds supposedly being educated about such. We certainly did not get value for our dollars spent in this scenario, did we?

The OEA/OFT/STRS certainly know how to spend the dedicated flow of income they receive through educators' payroll deductions, but have little concept of how to adequately fund the retirement and health care system.

This is a travesty! I hold each of you responsible! Either lead, follow good leadership, or get out of the way!

Thomas Curtis, ret. 1998