Tom Curtis: Letter to STRS Board

From Tom Curtis, November 19, 2010
Subject: 111910 Highly Slanted Report At Yesterdays Board Meeting

To STRS Staff & Board Members,

Yesterday at the STRS board meeting a slide show was presented by STRS which indicated that their study revealed that only "92% of retirees rarely worry about money" or "worry a little, but manage reasonably well." That same study indicated that only 1 out of 20 retirees is "struggling to make ends meet."

I find this information to be very slanted, and is a survey made of a small portion of STRS benefit recipients. This type of slanted information has been a mainstay of the STRS management and apparently approved by the Board.

These surveys ask questions that provide the information that the management desires and are often not truly the case. The caller is asked questions that are leading and interpreted by management as positive results on their behalf. No survey is proof positive of the results provided, because most are slanted.

As many of you know, I spent 7 years (2003-2010) attending Board meetings, receiving board minutes and Board handouts and listening to CD's once they became available. I have voiced the above opinion continuously, with absolutely no regard by the administration or Board members.

This practice is highly suspect to providing the stakeholders with information that paints a picture that the STRS is healthy and doing well, when the fact is, it is not and has not been for over a decade. This is during the time of the past 2 executive directors (Deyer & Asbury) and the current executive director, Michael Nehf.

Please stop misleading the stakeholders with your surveys that are meaningless. I am calling for a stop of what the administration would call fact-finding surveys. Further, I am asking that the STRS immediately stop providing misleading survey information in the STRS Newsletter to the stakeholders.

Thomas Curtis
STRS Retiree