Bob Buerkle: Other states still honoring commitments made to their current members and retirees

From Bob Buerkle, May 8, 2010
Subject: John, please forward to Nancy and others

Nancy,

I read your email this morning. I am assuming that the Lorain teachers union agreed to an extension of the April 30th layoff deadline established in Ohio Law. We had to do that once in Cincinnati, but it does have to be agreed upon in advance.

Nancy, you are right about the partisan bickering all the time. Friends of mine are talking about voting against all incumbents whenever possible, no matter what party they are in.

You are also right to say we don't know if we can invest our way out of this mess. Nobody does have that answer. But I'm also tired of hearing STRS say, "we can't invest our way out" of it either. At the same time action has to be taken to protect the system.

We need to let our legislators know that it is time to protect our current members and retirees at the benefit levels that they have earned and been promised under current law.

They should be looking at changes in the age and service requirements, lower pension formula multipliers, longer periods for FAS calculations and smaller COLAs. However, these things must be done by implementing a NEW RETIREMENT TIER for NEW HIRES ONLY. This offers the most logical way to get through this financial mess and still allows for improvements to be made with the new TIER members if we are able to overcome the crisis.

This is how Illinois, New York and fifteen other states are handling their pension shortfalls and still honoring the commitments that have been made to their current members and retirees. These states are not changing the pension rules after the game has begun (think actives) or worse, after the game is over (think retirees), and they are not going to withhold $9 billion from their retirees' pensions to make up for their losses like the STRS proposal does.

Bob Buerkle