RH Jones re: COLA cuts

From RH Jones, August 17, 2009
Subject: No COLA cuts for any OH retirement system

To all, especially the ORSC & ORTA:

Re: No COLA cuts for any Ohio retirement system

The Ohio (OH) Substitute House Bill 155, effective 02/01/2002, according to retired educator Dr. K. Fluke, was to establish the 3% COLA for all of the Ohio retirement systems. If the Ohio Retirement Study Council (ORSC) recommends doing away with the 3% COLA only for the STRS, would not the intent of this bill be violated? I think, yes, it would; and, by singling out only the STRS, and not the OPERS, SERS, Highway Patrol, and Police/Fire, would certainly be showing partiality. The best way for all is to not cut any of the retirement system’s COLAs.

As legislators pay into OPERS, if any new legislation was passed to cut any of the 3% COLA only for the STRS, it would seem to indicate the legislators would want to keep their own nest protected; but, yet, allow ours to go unprotected. This would be totally unreasonable to the average person. As everyone probably knows, the legislators and the STRS employees pay into OPERS. It would seem to me that this is a conflict of interest. In other words, they would want us to be cut, but not themselves. And, further, how could the STRS Director, Mr. Mike Nehf, recommend cutting our 3% COLA when his could be cut, as well? This whole thing just does not make any sense.

Another reason SHB 155 was established was to do away with the COLA “bank” that was so hard for the accounting departments to calculate for so many different retired individuals. The simple 3% COLA corrected that, and was less time consuming for the accounting employees; and, because of that, less expensive to calculate.

Also, of note -- as Dr. Fluke stated to me -- is that the active teacher STRS newsletter mentioned that there has not been any asset re-allocation change for retired teachers. He said this fails to mention our cuts in health care. Is this the STRS officials just being absent minded? I do not think so.

RHJones, retired teacher STRS member