Tentative STRS Plan as proposed by the STRS Administration

From CORE, August 22, 2009

CORE members Dave Parshall, Mary Ellen Angeletti, and Jill Fetters were able to attend the second day (Aug. 21) of the STRS August meetings. Below is an explanation of why retirees still do not know what the recommended plan will be.

STRS held their August meetings on Thursday, August 20th and Friday, August 21st. The STRS Investment Department reported a positive 6.1% return for the month of July. The current value of the pension fund at the end of July was $55.5 billion dollars market value which is up from $52. billion dollars in May.

The STRS staff shared their recommended plan of proposed changes to meet the Ohio Retirement Study Commission (ORSC) deadline of September 9th for each of Ohio's five public pension systems to come up with a plan for achieving a 30 year funding period. Note that the plan (below) is recommended by the STRS administration. For this reason, STRS Board members viewed it for the first time at the Thursday meeting. Upon further study of the 5 levers of the plan, the Board members and the Health Pension Advocates had many questions and the discussions were continued into the Friday meeting. Following the report from the Investment Dept. on Friday, there were unexpected interruptions in the agenda by urgent litigation issues which required lengthy executive sessions for the Board. When the Board returned to discussions of the plan below, it was decided that four scenarios of changes to the plan would be run by Chief Financial Officer Bob Slater's accounting department to determine the effects and savings of each. At this point, it was also determined that another Board meeting would be required to finalize a plan, and a date of Tuesday, September 1st at 9:00 a.m. was set. Due to the fact that this meeting will occur in September, Board member Jeff Chapman will be off the Board as his term will have expired, and the three newly elected members will join the STRS Board. They are Carol Correthers (active teacher member), Bob Stein, and James McGreevy (both retired teacher members).

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