OFT Supports Julie Sellers for STRS Board Contributing Seat

January 23, 2022 

OFT Supports Julie Sellers for STRS Board Contributing Seat

OFT is proud to support Julie Sellers, President of Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, for one of the contributing member seats.

Please read Julie's statement about her experience and priorities, and then follow these instructions to download, sign, and return a nomination form so that we can make sure Julie is on the ballot!

Julie's candidate statement:

"I’m a STRS contributing member, with 20 years of experience as an elementary school teacher before being elected President of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, Local 1520 in 2009.

In addition to my role as CFT President, I also currently serve on the Executive Board of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council and the Executive Committee for Ohio Federation of Teachers, and as co-chair of the Ohio 8 Coalition, which is made up of district superintendents and union presidents from Ohio’s eight largest school districts.

I have always fought at the local level to make sure educators can retire with dignity. I’m running for the STRS Board because I want to fight for all educators to have that dignity. I’m not afraid to be a watchdog or to call people and institutions out when needed. I’ll push the Board to be more transparent and to stop doing the same old things that have kept STRS from recovering financially.

I’ve been involved with retirement issues since 2008, when actions were taken to make the system more soluble in response to the Great Recession. Unfortunately, the actions that have been taken in the last 14 years have not stabilized STRS, and contributing members are carrying the heaviest burden from that failure.

We pay the second highest contribution rate in the country (for statewide teachers pension systems), yet we’ve seen it become harder and harder to retire with full benefits. I’ll fight to reduce the years of service requirement and reduce or eliminate the age requirement. We can do that with smarter investments, increased transparency, and a long overdue increased contribution from employers.

I speak to CFT members everyday and that has given me a great understanding of the wide array of stressors that contributing members are facing as we do our jobs through a global pandemic. Having a secure retirement should not be one of those stressors, it should be a guarantee."

Help get Julie on the STRS ballot:

1. STRS contributing members can download a nomination form for Julie at https://www.oft-aft.org/.../48-106x_sellers_2022_act.pdf

2. Fill it out and get some of your co-workers or other contributing members to sign also.

3. Because we need to track the number of signatures, you can send the form to us, then we will hand deliver them to STRS. Mail the completed form to:

Darold Johnson

Ohio Federation of Teachers

1251 E. Broad St.

Columbus, OH 43205

4. Send back the form as quickly as possible. The deadline is February 25, but we want to send in our signatures early to ensure that Julie is on the ballot.