Tom Curtis: Local union leaders need to be aware of the mess at STRS

From Tom Curtis

September 28, 2022

[___], you said it, the local union presidents and representatives are the ones that need to be educated about the Mess at STRS. In my opinion, the locals could not be blind to what the OEA has allowed to happen. This is not about them forsaking their union relationship with the OEA. They need a union to represent their teachers. It is now about getting the OEA's influence totally off of the STRS Board and keeping them off. It is about the fact that the OEA's control of the STRS Board for 30 plus years has cost every STRS member a lot of money. That is a fact!

The OEA has been in bed with the STRS management, having always been pro-management and allowing the criminal mismanagement and misspending to exist and continue until STRS has become a debt collection agency. This is not conjecture. That is a fact. The worst thing about all of this is that the STRS management has never shared in reducing the debt but has instead increased the debt and has become the only winners. The STRS staff are the highest paid public pension staff in the United States, because the OEA-controlled Board sanctioned that.

Who has been paying the entire bill, the members, both active and retirees and all Ohio taxpayers. All retirees that retired after July 1st of 2012 have yet to receive a COLA! 10 years without a COLA! Has any active teacher gone 10 years without a pay increase? I really don't think so. If the local presidents and representatives don't get behind the removal of every OEA-supported Board member over the next 3 years, they are being traitors to their local people.