Please pass the green beans!

From John Curry, March 8, 2009

To those STRS retirees looking for immediate relief...

...before the STRS Board "guts" more of our current health insurance program benefits and increases already unaffordable benefit premiums, I have some more bad news! Some of you, including myself, were hoping for almost immediate reform of our national health policy....a praiseworthy wish but...not a realistic wish. This time 'round, the President will turn over a significant amount of this "reform" to Congress. With Congress in the driver's seat comes the reality of lobbyists for the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the health insurance industry to ply their trades...at out expense. We will eventually get "reform," but it will come to us in the finished product as a "watered-down" package...one that will still allow a profit-over-service business model. We can and should take an active interest in the directions that these "reforms" will take. We can and should become educated with the current happenings in Congress and, most importantly, write our U.S. Congressmen (and women) about our feelings concerning them. Will we?

So, how did we get to where we are today with our current STRS healthcare picture? My take.... is it is a combination of forces that have caused neglect for the retiree for over a decade. We can start the decline of our healthcare program beginning back in the Herb Dyer days. In those times it was not really a well-kept secret that Herb and some of those in management at STRS really wanted to get out of the healthcare business...to pass it off onto the private sector.

This was compounded by teacher labor organizations who sat idly by while the management at STRS made their executive decisions with no hard questions being asked...nor hardly any questions being asked about the dozens and dozens of motions being passed monthly at STRS with an almost immediate unanimous rubber stamping by those who were supposed to be looking out for our (the retirees') interests - the STRS Board. Think about it....retired educators don't pay association dues to the OEA or the OFT, do they? The Ohio Revised Code 3307.15 didn't and doesn't apply to the OEA or the OFT. These organizations are just recently alerting the active educators as to an impending crisis with STRS healthcare...a crisis that began in the early 2000's but was certainly not actively broadcast to their rank-in-file membership until after the fact...and then the coverage was minimal. This was not broadcast to their membership, in particular, due to the fact that five of the former STRS Board members were criminally convicted for violating Ohio ethics laws...along with former Executive Director Herb Dyer. Things like this you just don't want to brag about, do you?

This was also compounded by the reality that those in executive positions at STRS were and are not educators....they are actuaries, investors, accountants, and business men and women. Some(note-not all) of them even have the Wall Street mentality that we have come to see being exposed these days in every newspaper and electronic media on the face of the globe. It was a good game for those while it was being played in an environment of lax regulations (no real STRS Board member oversight and hard question asking in our case) but....the greed and deception finally has been exposed for what it was...greed and deception. If the STRS administration didn't generate policy internally to present to the Board for adoption they brought in paid consultants who also worked in and lived by the Wall Street mentality of entitlement to do the same. Problem is, the ORC 3307.15 doesn't recognize nor condone an entitlement mentality, does it? If "our" associates, or at least those in management positions, were placed in and paid into the Ohio STRS with Ohio STRS retirement benefits things might have gone a different direction, might they have not? The same can be said for placing our Ohio politicians into the STRS retirement system rather than OPERS system they currently pay into....do you think that may have had something to do with the vast differences in the healthcare premium schedules of STRS vs. those at OPERS and the OPERS proactive planning for future healthcare obligations? I do!

The last factor that led retirees to where we are today is one that we can blame on ourselves, the retirees! Far too many of us have stood idly by and trusted our professional (?) retirement organizations to be a watchdog over the actions and day-to-day work at STRS. These organizations have, for the most part, served only as social gathering service clubs fostering a monthly opportunity to hash over old times with portions of meat and mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans. A tasty time-out in a retiree's monthly calendar with a smidgen of current, and the most important part but not realized by retirees, legislative report which was and is usually met with the more often heard request, "Please pass the green beans!" And then.....the legislative report is neither discussed nor thought about for another month because most retired educators, as well as actives don't pay attention to their retirement system's actions and planning (or lack thereof), do they? Guess what.....they are now! The best way, unfortunately, to get the attention of a retiree is to reduce benefits or increase deductions on that monthly paycheck, isn't it? By the way…when was the last time you saw a representative of ORTA or OEA-R stand up, at an STRS “public speaks” portion of an STRS Board meeting and…speak as a representative for ORTA or OEA-R while calling the STRS administration or Board to task over an issue of misspending, mismanagement, or entitlement? It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? We do have, along with Dr. Leone, some new members on the Board that are open to your suggestions...remember that. Now, please pass the green beans!

John