Dennis Leone to STRS Board: Remember the six STRS Board members and the executive director who were convicted in court and removed from STRS forever!

Dennis Leone's remarks to the STRS Board

May 16, 2019 

Members of the Board, my name is Dennis Leone. I am an STRS retiree and a former member of the STRS Board [2005-2009]. I have a couple of questions for you today: 

Does it bother any of you sitting here in front of me that there are over 100,000 STRS retirees, me included, who were told by STRS counselors that a 3% COLA would be statutorily awarded annually, it was something we could count on, it was something we could plan on receiving each and every year? It was a way we could make a stab at paying for increased costs for things like groceries, gasoline and -- believe it or not -- even school levies! I wonder if anyone has thought about this one: retired STRS members voting no on school levies because their pensions are frozen for life. Does it bother any of you that the COLA elimination was a promise broken? It was a promise broken. It was a promise broken! 

So you got the state legislature to change the law that commanded you to give us an annual 3% COLA. Perhaps you need to be reminded that the new law said you could adjust the COLA, not eliminate it. And perhaps your legal counsel is telling you that the words "adjust" and "eliminate" in this instance can be one and the same. I beg to differ with that posture. Reducing the COLA temporarily, and even cutting it for one year, perhaps meets the definition of adjusting the COLA. But eliminating the COLA as representing an adjustment? No, it doesn't pass the smell test. 

And, as everyone here knows, while you say there is not enough money to provide a COLA, you have concluded that there certainly is enough money, thanks in part to teacher and school board contributions, for a bunch of staff members to get huge bonus checks each year. I know what you have heard as Board members. Giving the bonus checks insures that you have the best and brightest employees, it parallels what happens on Wall Street, and not giving the bonuses will cause your best people to get out of Dodge. I heard the same stuff when I served on this Board. 

I know a teacher in southern Ohio who volunteered to take the lower level kids in her school, because it was something she wanted to do, and guess what? She had success in helping her whole class increase their state report card scores! Did she get a bonus? Hardly. She got a pat on the back and a public thank you at a school board meeting, but that was it...no bonus. You know what she said that night? "I just feel like I was doing my job." How about that? 

Okay, I am finished here today. You have broken a promise to over 100,000 retirees. You have decided to use a new law that says you can adjust the COLA to mean that you can eliminate it. And you are giving out giant bonuses to staff annually, even though your members who made contributions for over 30 years never saw anything like a bonus, even when they did exemplary work. 

Thank you. Hey, guess what today is? Sixteen years ago, on this day in this room, when I was a school superintendent for Chillicothe City, I gave the Board ad 13-page report that outlined poor decision-making on the Board's part. Six Board members and the executive director here were convicted in court and removed from STRS forever. Some of you may need to refresh your memory about what happened then. 

[View this page: https://kathiebracy.blogspot.com/search?q=gas+cards for an idea of what was contained in those 13 pages in 2003]