Nancy Boomhower's speech to the STRS Board, March 19, 2009

Good afternoon. My name is Nancy Boomhower. I am a retired first grade teacher from Medina County. I am presently employed, on a part time basis, as a GED teacher at the Medina County Jail.

"Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned." That phrase keeps going through my head. Why, you ask? The reason is that I keep seeing our money dwindling away and nothing seems to be being done to put out the fire.

We had $80 billion in assets as of October, 2007. As of January 30, 2009, our assets were $49.7 billion and shrinking. Our assets are down about 40%. This is cause for the fire alarm to be ringing and something to be done!

When my investments started to dwindle away, I did something. I pulled back and put my money in the credit union at 4.5%. I may not be making as much interest as I was but my money is not continuing to shrink.

In the public sector, at least half of the investment staff would be gone along with the billions. Is that happening here at STRS? No, it is business as usual. Yes, PBIs were frozen but big raises were on the horizon.

It seems to me that it is time for a reality check here at STRS. I keep hearing the term that the investment staff needs to be in the 25th quartile. Maybe, instead, they need to be grateful to have a job. And a good, well paying one at that.

Our staff does not need to look for funds to invest. The funds are handed to them. They receive many perks: such as the ability to live where the cost of living is decidedly less than in the big cities. They have free parking, inexpensive lunches, excellent child care facilities on site, PERS retirement, a Cadillac healthcare plan and so on. These perks need to be considered as part of their salaries. A word of advice to our retirement staff. Be careful that you don't kill the golden goose with your huge salaries and raises.

The people who need to wake up are you people sitting on the Board. You are the ones who vote for or against these items. You are the people who just might be doing away with not only our health care and endangering our pensions but also your own. Think about that!