James Carr: What were those Board members thinking?

From James Carr

September 13, 2022

I wonder what the complicit STRS Board members were thinking when they unilaterally suspended our promised COLA. I wonder if they even bothered to think about the impact their decision would have on many of our oldest and most vulnerable members, those who are now in their late 80s and into their 90s. Those who retired with comparatively menial salaries. Many of them retired with final average salaries of less than $20,000 a year. The only defense they had against inflation was a 3% annual COLA of $400 or less. These were my peers and their careers were winding down when I first stepped into the classroom back in the mid-1970s.

Many of them are now too old or too infirm to work part time, even if they wanted to.

Did the complicit STRS Board members stop to consider what their decision was going to do to these people's lives? I doubt it. They were too busy trying to figure out ways to spend our money on more important priorities.
Priorities like: How can we find more money to enhance our investment staff's bonuses? What can we do to improve our staff's day care center? How can we improve the security of our parking garage? What fancy new piece of art can we buy to hang on the palace wall?

They should have been asking this question: What can we do to make the lives of these elderly teachers more comfortable as they enter their twilight years? The Board's indifference simply turned this vulnerable group of retired teachers into unnecessary casualties. In military lingo, they have become collateral damage.