Mary Ellen Angeletti to STRS Board: Please vote down the HPA plan

From Mary Ellen Angeletti, October 11, 2010

Dear STRS Board Members,

I understand that you will be voting this Friday on the proposed HPA plan for reducing the unfunded liability. Since the STRS Board's current proposed plan is already in the hands of the ORSC, I hope that you will vote against the HPA plan. Retirees will be paying 73% of the cost of your proposed reform bill to reduce the unfunded liability and that will begin in 2011 while the HPA plan proposes the same 2011 hit for retirees and delays the hit for active teachers far into the future. IS this fair?

Neither plan is fair to the retirees as we are taking the biggest hit . . . a hit that retirees cannot afford. How is either plan equitable to the retired teachers of Ohio whose STRS pensions have taken hit after hit for health care and spousal increases? The retirees have already sacrificed to help our STRS Ohio's unfunded liability. The proposed COLA reduction is unconscionable.

Mary Ellen Angeletti
STRS Member