Tom Curtis: Letter to Laura Ecklar

From Tom Curtis, July 24, 2010
072410 Re Ecklar, Re: Response to Recent E-Mail

Thank you Laura for a timely response for Mr. Nehf.

Please pass the following along to Mr. Nehf. I realize there is little he can do in changing the near total collapse, of a previously mismanaged retirement system. The blame for such certainly does not fully fall on the backs of Wall Street.

If the 1% reduction is signed into law, it is just one more broken promise retirees were given at retirement.

To me, it still remains incomprehensible that there was not a grandfathering of the HC benefits, we were also promised at retirement.

OSTRS is the only pension system in Ohio that has been so callous to their retirees' HC benefits.

As you well know, in 2004 the OSTRS totally removed the spousal subsidy and 25% of the BR subsidy. Shameful! What can we expect to lose next, before we die?

The only job all OSTRS employees and board members have ever been given is to secure our pension and HC benefits. Today, it is blatantly obvious, that our employees and board have not gotten the job done. How many of them have had their pay and benefits reduced, because of a lack of proper planning and poor performance? Yeah, right?

However, those same employees have always received excellent pay and benefits. Those, far beyond what we, the stakeholders, have ever received. Again, shameful! But, I am sure the stakeholders must owe it to them, even though they produced less then favorable results for us.

To my remembrance, it has always been stated that the OSTRS must pay their employees well, so they can hire and keep the best and brightest. That statement is simply a load of rubbish! It is merely a justification to increase all employee salaries and benefits.

Further, does that mean that all of the other retirement systems hired people with lesser skills and abilities? Hardly!

If that absurd statement were true, that OSTRS has hired the best and brightest, then why is OSTRS in the worst financial position in the state and provides the worst HC benefit for their retirees and spouses? Retirement without a good and inexpensive HC benefit for both the BR and spouse is no retirement at all.

Please correct me, if I am wrong, but wasn't the retirement system all OSTRS employees pay into (OPERS) able to grandfather the HC benefits their retirees were promised? It would then seem, that they must have hired the best and the brightest.

As they too will enter into the after world, I can only hope that Herb Dyer, his management staff and the board members of his time, receive equal atonement for the miserable, arrogant and greedy individuals they were and probably still are,

Tom Curtis
A proud disgruntled OSTRS Retiree

From Laura Ecklar, July 21, 2010
Subject: Response to Recent E-Mail

Dear Mr. Curtis,

I am responding on behalf of our executive director, Michael Nehf, to your recent e-mail regarding the proposed COLA reduction.

The proposed plan unanimously approved by the State Teachers Retirement Board on Sept. 1, 2009, includes this provision: Beginning July 1, 2011, current retirees would receive an annual 2% COLA; members retiring after July 1, 2011, would receive a 1.5% COLA each year. As you know, all the changes contained in STRS Ohio’s proposed plan, including a change to the COLA, require legislative action by the Ohio General Assembly and the governor.

During Mr. Nehf’s tenure at the Employees’ Retirement System of Georgia, the COLA was reduced to 2% from 3% to help reduce the unfunded accrued liabilities. Additionally, a new pension plan for new hires as of Jan. 1, 2009, was also implemented to reduce the unfunded liability going forward. I hope this information is useful to you. Thank you.

Laura Ecklar
Director, Communication Services