Suzanne Laird to STRS Board, April 21, 2022: Wouldn’t you want to be a part of the Board that turned this ship around BEFORE being publicly told to do so?

My name is Suzanne Laird, and I retired after 30 plus years of teaching and seven years of substitute teaching in retirement. 

Good Morning, members of MY Board:

Governor DeWine, as you know, issued a statement yesterday, endorsing a  special audit of STRS.

If I were sitting on this Board, I’d be shaking in my boots. Last year, you could ignore Ted Siedle’s audit, but to ignore this special audit would take a certain kind of arrogance.

Unfortunately, we’ve witnessed such arrogance in this very room. Every month, It’s like the eighth circle of hell.  Last month was particularly hellish as we watched Board members up for re-election scramble to remind everyone that they were not responsible for the cancellation of the COLA. But just before the ballots went out, suddenly you were all for granting a one time COLA?

Don’t clutch your pearls and proclaim that you are “offended” at the insinuation: it is the truth!

 

Let’s read between the lines of Mr. DeWine’s last sentence: “I am encouraged by recent actions of the Board to BEGIN to address cost of living concerns.” He and Mr. Faber are well versed in sudden epiphanies when an election is imminent. A temporary one time COLA does not begin to solve the problem.

 

Now, in case you are not current on your Dante, the eighth circle is fraud. The Governor is looking at investment costs and fees: we know STRS refuses to reveal all the fees, what about the costs of over one hundred investment managers? You were complicit in awarding those exorbitant salaries and bonuses every year to employees who were not meeting their own “benchmarks” – that fuzzy term your Governor is going to want defined.

One of our appointees did ask, last month, whether those PBIs were out of the ordinary for pension systems, and was there a written policy? Perhaps Mr. Faber will compare bonuses granted here to other Ohio pension systems, and whether it is fraudulent to award bonuses before COLAs to stakeholders.

 

Our appointees are not subject to elections, so we count on you to step up and ask the hard questions. One of you has done so, admirably. But I’m concerned that others cannot possibly grasp the hardships imposed by the Board on our active and retired teachers. Several of you earn 3, 4, 5 or more times what an Ohio teacher earns annually. Last month, one brave teacher stood here and explained how, for 30 of her 35 years of teaching, she had to wait tables for tips. She couldn’t stay, after her speech, because, remember? It was St. Patrick’s Day. She needed those tips. She probably earned more on that day than in a week of teaching Ohio’s students.

I have no doubt that the Auditor will find plenty to criticize, but why wait? Politics aside, wouldn’t you want to be a part of the Board that turned this ship around BEFORE being publicly told to do so?

Start cutting the obscene waste and fraud now.

The taxpayers and teachers will thank you.