STRS: Where are you hiding those 589 people? Jim Conard wants to know.....as do the rest of us

Jim Conard to John Curry, August 5, 2009
Subject: STRS

John, I read your comments concerning the cuts for the retired teachers. However, I have heard only about frozen salaries, nothing about actual cuts, for the STRS staff. Let us look at the 81 investment staff which make an average salary of $220,000 a year. If you know anything about finance there are only 9 windows they can invest in. Some investment people call them boxes. Therefore at the most, in my opinion, they only need 27 investors. According to one of Mark Mueser's responses they only have the opporutnity to invest 1/2 of 1% anyway. The other point is, they show 589 associates, of whom 558 are full-time and 31 are part-time. Question, does Mike Nehf know all 589 associates and does each of these people have a job description? Everything they have is on computers, and in my opinion, it would take less than 100 people to run that program. I have been to STRS three times and when I walked in I could not find anyone. Where do they hide 589 associates?

Jim Conard,
Shelby County Retired Teacher