Jim Reed comments.....

Jim N. Reed to Kathie Bracy, January 18, 2011
Subject: Your Concentration Camp Letter Stirred Some Feelings

Hello Kathie,

The tragic historic perspective posed by your recent letter to the STRS board was very relevant to anyone who understands the "forget your past (infamous) and be doomed to see it repeated" paradigm. Those of us who see your metaphor as poignant will most likely be challenged by the disloyal opposition to let the past go.

Unwisely, those of us branded as CORE malcontents and dissidents are frequently admonished for dredging up the past. As Dyer reminded us, we needed to stop rocking the boat, quit belly-aching, be grateful for what we are receiving (especially since it wasn't ours anyway), get past it and move on.

I have never accepted that mantra. CORE is not at the core of our current retirement dilemma. Absent professional foresight, poor planning, self indulgence, an out-of-touch board-administration mentality and STRS's fiscal mismanagement are. Plain and simple. Dealing with that dysfunctional agenda would have been preferable to shoving it under the STRS Palace carpeting, behind the "Integrity"sculpture or beneath the pavers in the garage.

Have we been encouraged to back off public criticism of our retirement system and professional organization in hopes of appearing to have closed ranks in order to pacify our detractors in the General Assembly only to see fewer educator-friendly legislators speaking out on our behalf? And it doesn't appear that we have a friend in the "push 'em under the bus" Governor (at least until we publicly apologize for our non-support of his candidacy).

Let me address a couple of unpalatable written letters causing a case of indigestion. I found the messages of Mr. McGreevy and Mr. Stein and the recent STRS Bulletin to contain statements that were tough to swallow.

Mr. McGreevy's comment about retiree culpability regarding the unfunded liability: "Individuals who retired, to this point in time, contributed to the unfunded liability by not making adequate contributions." And whose bleeping fault was that?

To his credit, McGreevy points a finger at board members who "chose to ignore them (actuarial projections)..." The ignorance in understanding those projections was hardly an excuse for dispensing retiree funds for their own private gratification for over a decade.

Perhaps Mr. Stein's responsive letter (I give him credit for his response as it was punctual and included some important information) to the Sniders already provides part of the answer to the unfunded liability conundrum. He blames educators who should have been "more attentive and active." Here, I find some common ground. Far too many educators have been passive far too long, STRS illiterate too long, and too blindly trusting as stakeholders toward their caretakers. We foolishly believed their promises.

Where Mr. Stein misses the mark is with his blanket statement about inattention and inactivity. Since 2003 every board member, every executive director, every CORE member and many investigative reporters were aware of the lack of ethics and plenitude of mismanagement that had transpired in and out of the boardroom.

The admonitions and prognostications of Dr. Dennis Leone and Mr. John Lazares during their board tenures brought them ridicule with attacks on their professionalism and character. Even when their words were proven to be accurate there were few admissions, let alone apologies. Shameful.

Mr. McGreevy claims: "We were happy to accept the pre-2008 reality as sustainable." Who the heck is "we?" He had access to Dr. Leone's 2003 award-winning piece of investigative journalism. He also sat in on many of the "public speaks" sessions from '03-'08. Many of those speakers understood reality better than most of the people up-front. "We" who were STRS-literate did not accept the pre-2008 status quo as sustainable and we shouted and shouted about it. What our shouts got us was name-calling..."malcontents and dissidents" and worse.
"Based on the support we have received from our constituents, we know that Ohio educators are willing to make necessary changes to preserve their pensions." Executive Director Michael Nehf entered this observation in a recent letter to the "Columbus Dispatch." On what is he basing the "we know?" Is it the Saperstein Associates Eighth Annual STRS Members' Survey? Out of about 450,000 actives, retirees and beneficiaries 600 were contacted for their views and value judgement regarding their retirement system.

Who commissioned these surveys and at what expense? Did the board's constituents initiate the surveys? Of what real value to retirees was the current survey and previous surveys? What real changes in STRS operations have been altered for the benefit of retirees from these surveys? For some time there has been a question among many STRS-literate retirees regarding how the survey's responses can be factually representative. Is there a preponderance of Mr. Stein's inattentive and inactive constituents among the responders to these surveys?

Just as I dislike and mistrust any politician who purports to speak for me by saying "most Americans" I find it equally indigestible when I am spoken for as being among Ohio educators willing to swallow "necessary changes to preserve their pensions."

If a retiree consensus admitting guilt to causing the unfunded liability is the way to the General Assembly's heart, when does it become part of the cleansing for STRS policy-makers and administrators to demonstrate some semblance of remorse for fiscal mismanagement, self-serving entitlement decisions, and subsequent lack of corrective action?

Finally, retirees are constantly being reminded that even if many of their in-house grievances should be addressed to their satisfaction, it would only be a drop in the bucket toward rectifying the system's unfunded liability. That retort misses the point. Retirees deserve to know that each dollar that they have invested is being treated with respect and that the fiduciary responsibility of the caretakers of their retirement is considered urgent business yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Jim N. Reed
Malcontent (not satisfied with current conditions)
Jnrfore@aol.com