RH Jones re: an unacceptable ORTA older retiree COLA guideline

From RH Jones, January 11, 2012

To all retired teachers:

Especially for the ORTA dues paying members, I would like to communicate to you that, according to the “Winter 2012 ORTA Quarterly”, your ORTA officials on 10/27/2011 created “Legislative Guidelines for 2012” that included a guideline “STRS Ohio” which states in number 2 as a priority that: “Continue working to improve the formula for computing bases pension amounts for all recipients and to maintain a minimum COLA for older retirees.”

ORTA members, their work to continue to improve the formula base pension amounts for all recipients is, agreeably, a real priority for us in the never ending inflation of the dollar; but, however, the ORTA statement “… to maintain a minimum for older retirees” is totally unacceptable. It just lacks common sense. I cannot imagine their thinking. My dictionary states that the word minimum means: “1. Lowest possible degree: the lowest possible amount.” Do they really want that the older retirees to have the lowest possible amount of COLA? This Life Member thinks that the ORTA officials should print a retraction of that unacceptable priority goal for 2012.

Personally, I think the best way for them to eliminate this obvious mistake is to just erase “and to maintain a minimum COLA for older retirees.” As a retired teacher, I am fine with “ … improve the formula base pension amounts for all recipients. …” period; but not with keeping older retirees at a lowest possible amount. If anything, older retirees should be kept at the highest amount of the COLA. A reasonable person knows that the older STRS retiree’s present non-compounded 3% COLA does not keep retirees up with inflation.

RHJones, ORTA Life Member