RH Jones re: STRS Flashback

From RH Jones, March 15, 2010
Subject: Fw: STRS Flashback...back to the time when they trashed STRS retirees' spouses and talked about that yet-to-be-discovered "dedicated funding stream!" Sound familiar???
To all:
It is easy to see from the "flashback" below that retired educators have already given up some of our deferred compensations in the one form of HC/Rx take-aways and now the ORSC wants us to accept a take-back of 1% of our flat, fixed, 3% COLA.
It is unreasonable to think that retired educators should suffer even further; therefore, if any further cuts happen, it should not be at the expense of those who have already sustained a loss: Ohio's retired teachers! No one else in our profession has sustained such a loss as we have already endured. The "dedicated stream" needed to sustain our STRS should not come out of retiree pockets.

A fundamental truth, as espoused by such economic leaders as Harvard's Claudia Golden and Larry Katz, is that: we Americans became the number one leader in the 20th century because we educated more of our youngsters than any other nation. It is, therefore, beyond my belief that the educated members of the ORSC would even consider further cutting of retired educators' previously lawfully negotiated compensations that included a decent HC/Rx and even a flat, but not compounded, 3% COLA.

Recent Ohio education college graduates are not so uninformed as to not know that retired teachers have had their deferred compensation cut. Would the best of them want to be employed in a state that can so easily cut their future HC/Rx, and flat COLA, I wonder?
RHJones, retired career teacher