Bob Buerkle to STRS Board: Can any insurance company in the United States implement a negative change in their annuity payout once it has begun? The answer is NO

Bob Buerkle's speech to STRS Board
December 19, 2019
I think all workers who participate in any of the five Ohio Public Pension Plans, work hard and deserve to be justly compensated in retirement based on their contributions and their total number of service career years. Ohio taxpayers have provided the original funds to pay for these services which the general public deems as necessary for the public good, such as Police and Fire protection, Government workers and the Teachers and Support personnel who educate today's students.
The pension laws are codified and specific as to age, service credit, formulas and the annual Cost of Living Adjustment that each system is directed to provide. Once retired, all Defined Benefit Plan Pensioners under these five Ohio Systems should be treated fairly, equally and be assured that they will always receive the benefits they were promised at retirement.
When STRS Retirees see OPERS retirees continuing to receive the 3% simple COLA that they were promised, while our retirees have fallen behind them by 15% since 2013, you Board Members should understand why we are upset. To believe that secretaries, counselors, janitors or the managers here at STRS who belong to OPERS, deserve a better pension than teachers is absurd, ridiculous and totally unacceptable, especially since these same STRS Managers forced obnoxious new retirement rules and contribution levels on actives and changed the rules for STRS Retirees years after their careers were over.
Why didn't you change the rules for yourself? I think you should force yourselves to pay 40% more in contributions and lengthen your careers requirements by 5-9 years like you forced on teachers. When you retire, I think you should reject all COLA raises until you have lost the same amount that retired teachers have lost and continue to lose. Your decisions have created a schism, jealousy and animosity between STRS active teachers and retirees. You have ruined the intergenerational equity that STRS Teachers and Retirees had counted on for decades.
Generally, when most people say they are on a fixed income they are referring to being retired and on Social Security, which covers about 94% of the American Work Force. Sixty to eighty years ago, Ohio, including STRS, opted out of Social Security for government pension plans, telling these members they would be in a better plan. Do you not see the irony in this now, since STRS contributions are 28% of earnings while Social Security is funded with only 12.4% of earnings? And, Social Security also pays an annual COMPOUNDED COLA! Social Security also pays a non-working spouse up to 50% of what the retired wage earner receives, or a 150% pension benefit, while STRS reduces the teacher's pension, on average, by about 10% to protect their spouse.
STRS brings a whole new meaning for our STRS Retirees of what it means to be on a fixed income. It hasn't changed for years, were locked in where we were and there's no change in sight! NOW THAT IS TRULY FIXED INCOME.
One last question for you today. Yes or No, can any insurance company in the United States implement a negative change in their annuity payout once it has begun? The answer is NO.