Dennis Leone: Wait till the active teachers find out (OEA)

From Dennis Leone, April 11, 2009
Subject: RE: Letters: Stop the STRS Board
I have received 207 letters and emails in the past 4 weeks from ACTIVE STRS members, and 206 of them oppose ANY bonus checks going to STRS staff in years that we lose money in the stock market. Jim Stoll is correct: The board soon will be voting on $3.3 million in bonuses for the current fiscal year. Many of these bonuses will be in excess of $100,000. And these bonuses will be for an investment staff that ALSO receives a average base salary of over $150,000 (plus spectacular benefits) – no matter how poorly STRS does in the stock market. I get a little tired of the “please don’t blame ME” attitude of the investment staff members when the stock market goes down and STRS assets go down. However, they sure expect to be thanked and rewarded with gigantic bonus checks if the stock market goes up and STRS assets go up. Perhaps the time has come, in the event the Board awards FY 2009 bonuses, for legislation to be pursued that will put a stop to it in the future in times like these.
OEA says it supports a bonus suspension and doesn’t want bonuses awarded in down years, but it also says it is proud of the very OEA-backed board members (Meuser, Myers, Ramser) who publicly did NOT support these STRS actions. Wait until active teachers find out the truth about this. OEA is now doing the same thing it did in 2003 when it embarrassed itself by writing that assertions of board/staff wasteful spending were “destructive” and were “misrepresentations.”
Dennis Leone