Lloyd Knudsen (after the dust has settled): Winners and Losers

From Lloyd Knudsen, September 21, 2009
Subject: STRS Winners and Losers
CORE leaders,

Now that the dust has settled on the STRS Board's decision to "overpay" our investment staff and their ORSC recommendations, let's examine the Winners and Losers in all this.

The Winners, it's the same old, same old. The BIGGEST, BIGGEST winner is the STRS management and staff itself. They cut little or nothing from their magical kingdom. In fact, I would not be surprised if within a year or two of our most recent "catastrophic investment losses", STRS wage freezes, employee head count freezes, longer work week, no PBI's for investment losses, etc., etc., etc. will be a thing of the past. The good times will most surely return for the STRS management and staff. I think our OEA-backed Board will make sure of it.

The second BIGGEST winner is the OEA. They saved some face with their membership by preserving for their 30 year plus teachers the sacred "35-year/88%" golden parachute until 2015. However, they sold out their younger actives to achieve it. Attempting to quell the anger from younger active teachers, OEA leader Bill L. has the nerve to say OEA did not support STRS's recommendations. OEA was not only actively involved in helping craft the ORSC package but his OEA-majority Board insured its passage. I don't think actives are going to buy Bill's attempt at the "innocent bystander" defense. If I were an active today, OEA would have received its last dollar from me.

Mr. Brooks suggested that IF "time was of the essence" in STRS's financial crisis that perhaps the changes for actives should not wait until 2015. That plea fell on deaf ears. My pessimistic side believes that the STRS staffs' "gift" of the 2015 implementation date coincides conveniently with the OEA-backed Board's lack of demanding STRS staff cuts and approving PBI payments. Just my opinion.

And now for the losers. The BIGGEST, BIGGEST loser is any active teacher who can't retire before 2015. They are going to have to teach longer, pay in more and get less for their service than their "grandfathered" brethen. Unlike retirees, their problem is not that they "lived too long", their problem is they started teaching too late!

The second BIGGEST loser is the already retired teacher who loses 1% of his annual COLA and the accumulated earnings that represents. Our STRS Board in their wisdom didn't "grandfather" retirees did they? Also, the STRS Board made no financial safety provision for the older retiree or the retiree with the least income. That truly is a slap in the face to the teachers who helped build our STRS system.

Lloyd Knudsen