Ohio STRS, COLA and the GPO

From John Curry, June 6, 2009

Retired teacher benefits misunderstood

Dayton Daily News, June 4, 2009
Letter to the editor

Re “Courage, hard choices can protect retirement,” May 24: You may believe that a cost-of-living increase for teachers is compounded on last year’s benefit, as it is for Social Security, government retirement or military retirement. It is not.

Cost-of-living increases for teachers are based on their retirement pay the first year they retired. The cost-of-living pay is based on that every subsequent year. There is no compounding.

If, as the State Teachers Retirement System staff has suggested, it is cut to 1.5 percent, the increase will go back to the first year that teacher retired and the teacher’s cost-of-living increase will be 1.5 percent of that first year’s benefit.

Also, the retired teachers are hit hard by another law that most people are not aware of. By and large, they cannot collect from their husband’s Social Security, even if he dies, because of the “offset” law that lowers the benefit a dollar for every dollar they draw from STRS. So, in most cases, as in mine, I collect nothing from my husband’s Social Security, even though we have been married for 53 years.

Nancy Keggan
Beavercreek

http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/retired-teacher-benefits-misunderstood-148347.html?printArticle=y