Bob Buerkle to STRS Board: Past STRS Member Statements, fliers, publications, Ohio Revised Code 3307.67 and retirement counselors all informed us that we would always receive a COLA. All lies.

Bob Buerkle's speech to STRS Board

February 20, 2020

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times 

STRS Pension and formula changes make this the worst retirement era for our members since the 1960’s. The famous opening words from Charles Dickens’ The Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness” describe what has happened to STRS Members over the last 7 years.

We are currently experiencing the best of times for investments, which has created the longest BULL MARKET in history. Between March, 2009 and February, 2020 the overall market has more than quadrupled in value. Too bad we have only invested half of our pension funds in equities. By not investing 70-75% in equities, as done in the past, STRS portfolio values are about 14 Billion less than where they should be.

Consequently, STRS Retirees and Actives are experiencing the worst of times: no COLA, increased contributions and longer work requirements for smaller benefits. I have searched STRS for the age of wisdom without success, but we are all living in the STRS imposed age of foolishness. If there was STRS leadership with great wisdom, would the average retiree have already lost over $20,000 in promised pension benefits after their careers were over? Is it fair to require active teachers to increase their contributions by 40%, their career lengths by 5-9 years, their retirement age to 60, only to receive a lesser pension formula and a COLA delayed for at least five years?

The path of “Wisdom” would have been to grandfather retirees since their careers had been completed, often by two or three decades or more. The same goes for active teachers who had already completed 50 to 90% of their careers only to then have the rug pulled out from under them. We don’t care if STRS Management seeks to be 85%, 100% funded, or 200% funded, but do it on your own time and not at our expense. Make it a 100 year goal for fiscal year 2120, we don’t care. The STRS Plan has an assumed perpetual life while we retirees and active members have an expiration date!

We are all being subjected to pension rules that are worse today than they were in the 1960’s. There were no COLAs in those days, either, but at least you could retire with 35 years of service at any age and you only had to pay a 7% contribution rate.

In conclusion, STRS regularly informed members that health care was not guaranteed under our pension plan. However, excess monies could be used to fund health care and it was (over $40 billion in today’s dollars). So much funding that the actuary says the STRS health care plan has enough money right now to last for 65 years.

Conversely, STRS never told us that we were not guaranteed a simple annual COLA. Past STRS Member Statements, fliers, publications, Ohio Revised Code 3307.67 and retirement counselors all informed us that we would always receive a COLA. All lies.