STRS Flashback - 6 Years Ago - A healthcare promise that was never kept!

From John Curry, September 30, 2009

As you read this flashback you will notice some names in boldface. All of the names below in boldface were subsequently charged and convicted of Ohio ethics violations relating to their actions while being a board member of STRS. By a law enacted since 2003 (Ohio's Pension Reform Law), none of them can ever legally run again for the STRS board because of those convictions. Some people will conveniently and selectively forget this....I won't...and neither will I forget the Billirakis plea, "Help us get the legislature to find a solution to the health-care problem."

Talk is (was) cheap, action is (was) hard to come by! The legislature had 6 years and still hasn't acted, have they?

HB 315 was introduced in the last legislature (127th) and gathered dust until that session ended. Will any legislator have the political courage to introduce another version of it during the current session of the Ohio Legislature? I think you know the answer to that one, don't you?

John

P.S. A link to HB 315 is included at the end of Kostyu's article below.

Canton Repository, September 20, 2003
Member defends board’s health-care benefits
By PAUL E. KOSTYU
Copley Columbus Bureau chief

COLUMBUS — At another monthly meeting of the State Teachers Retirement System board, retirees, including some from Stark County, blasted their representatives for not doing a better job of protecting their health-care benefits.

Board member Mike Billirakis had enough.

He said critics had participated in “revisionist history” by ignoring what has been done. He said his sole purpose for being on the board is to find a long-term solution to the retirement system’s problems with providing health-care benefits to Ohio’s retired educators. He promised to resign once the solution is found.

“This board has spent 2-1/2 years trying to maintain the benefits and improve it,” he said.

Health care changes made by the board in May, which go into effect in January, will mean “thousands of retirees will have reduced benefits,” he said at Friday’s board meeting. “That’s wrong. But it’s financially based on the laws that govern us. We have no other option.”

Billirakis then told the overflow audience that instead of fighting with the board, they should help it.

“I implore you,” he said. “Help us get the Legislature to find a solution to the health-care problem. The board can’t change without you. The (STRS) staff can’t change without you.

There’s plenty of time for recriminations, but can we do that after we solve health care?”

Interim Director Damon Asbury said it is “incumbent on us to work” together to find a health-care solution.

“The pension system is solvent,” he said. “Checks are being sent. Health claims are being covered. Pension benefits without health care in today’s world is not sufficient.”

Outgoing Chairwoman Deborah Scott instructed the retirement system’s staff to find a better way to communicate with members. “Make it happen,” she said.

Scott gave an emotional farewell address, though she remains on the board. Eugene Norris of Columbus was elected chairman. Joe Endry of Westerville was elected vice chairman after Billirakis and Jack Chapman declined to move into that position.

A link to HB 315 http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=127_HB_315