Bob Buerkle to STRS Board June 21, 2018: You lied to us!

Bob Buerkle’s speech to the STRS Board June 21, 2018 

Where is the Justice in this STRS Building?

Last year STRS made additional retroactive pension system changes, on top of the 2013 changes, that will affect our financial future forever. You should not have been granted so much power over our lives! The actions you have taken if not soon reversed, will greatly diminish our economic value as consumers who, as a class, had beneficial importance in the past.

Your actions have also rendered our previous decisions of when to retire a total disaster. As retirees we should be able to have a “do-over” and make “null and void” the agreement that we had to sign with STRS upon our retirement. You changed the rules on us after the game was over!

I would like Director Nehf to provide me with a written response to the next three questions. First, do you have the power to force our employers to rehire us? Next, can you force the Department of Education to restore our expired non-permanent teaching certifications? Third, if you can’t do those two things for us, and I doubt you can, will STRS provide us with the option to remove the current actuarial transfer value of our remaining original pension reserves so we can invest the money for ourselves?

Teaching is one of the most stressful of all professions, but you have added more and more layers of stress to our lives, both current and future retirees. You lied to all of us, but particularly to the 25,000 people who sought STRS counseling and ended their careers early. You told them they would not receive a COLA for 5 years unless they retired by July 1, 2013. They were told they would receive a 2% COLA every year. Most of these retirees are now in their 6th year of retirement and now are looking at 2022 before they might receive a future COLA. The STRS Employees, IN THIS BUILDING, THAT WE PAY FOR, they receive a 3% COLA after just one year and every year in their retirement.

STRS knows how to take our money, but you don’t seem to know how to deliver the promises you made to us on our money.

Speaking of our money, you now receive 40% more from teachers. Of the 28% of total payroll earnings STRS receives, you are using 17% to achieve a GOAL YOU HAVE SET to reach 100% funding. This is not required by any legislation but you funnel over 2 Billion dollars annually towards your goal, leaving zero for COLA. Two Billion is 10 times the cost of providing a 3% COLA for one year to all 160,000 retirees. By the way, STRS Employees, IN THIS BUILDING, THAT WE PAY FOR, they aren’t forced to pay 40% more in pension contributions like OHIO Teachers are, and when they retire, they receive a 3% COLA every year.

Teachers who had planned years for their retirement date are now forced to work 35 to 39 years or longer before they can retire, and they must also be at least age 60, while the STRS Employees, IN THIS BUILDING, THAT WE PAY FOR, they can retire at any age after just 30 years.

Teachers will also receive lower pensions for life because of Final Average Salary changes, previously 3 years, has been changed to your high 5 years, lowering pensions by about 3%. However, the STRS Employees, IN THIS BUILDING, THAT WE PAY FOR, they still receive pensions based on their high 3 years of earnings. I might add that many of these STRS Employees, IN THIS BUILDING, THAT WE PAY FOR, have final average salaries that exceed $300,000, $400,000 and even $500,000.

A few months ago, I attended an STRS-sponsored meeting in Cincinnati about “Protecting Your Assets and Identity”. Do you understand what an “Oxymoron” is? As it turns out, STRS is the biggest threat to our pension promises on Planet Earth.

Cumulatively, STRS Members who traveled here today drove tens of thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars of their own money. After today there are 6 business days left in this fiscal year. They want to see you make the most of them, call a special Board Meeting and “Restore Our COLA Now.”