Cathy Steinhauser to STRS Board September 21, 2023: BE A BETTER FIDUCIARY!!

From Cathy Steinhauser

September 21, 2023

Cathy Steinhauser - 35 yrs. Family & Consumer Sciences satellite teacher w/Pickaway-Ross CTC for Circleville City Schools.

First, I'd like to welcome Mr. Davidson to my STRS Board. We have anxiously been waiting for you to take your seat and wish you the very best. Teachers know that you will be a proper fiduciary during your time of service.

Speaking of the word fiduciary, I think I need to review again what a fiduciary is because last month more than half the Board did not fulfill their fiduciary duty: "A person who acts on behalf of another person or persons, putting their clients' interests ahead of their own, with a duty to preserve good faith and trust. Being a fiduciary requires being bound both LEGALLY and ETHICALLY to act in others' best interests." This means that every Board member, the investment group, the executive director, the legal team, the financial team, the communications team and any other group is supposed to do what is right for the teachers in this pension because "STRS exists to pay member benefits" (Wade Steen). Teachers should be the first consideration in how this pension's decisions should be made! Misuse of pension money by paying for expensive surveys is a recent example of wasting pensioner's money! Stop the wasteful spending!!

An STRS pensioner, Erica Preston, had her disability hearing yesterday morning. I do not know Erica personally but after reading her story, I could tell she had been through hell. She had contracted Covid three years ago, fell, hit her head, and got amnesia. Every day since that fall she lives the next as a repeat. During her hearing, she felt like not one single person appeared to be listening. Her sister had to present her info because she can't communicate in stressful situations. Social Security awarded her Medicare within weeks of applying and deemed her disabled, therefore, the federal government says she can't work but STRS says she can??? In the meantime, she lost her license due to her inability to retain new info and complete CEUs. After teaching for 22 years the school district will fire her on Tuesday. Way to have her back STRS!! She gave so much to the public school system only to have you turn your back on her. If it weren't for her parents, her family would be homeless. Not having a paycheck in almost 3 years has been very difficult. She has already lost her identity and ability to function independently throughout the day and now you're taking whatever dignity she has left. You all should be ashamed of this terrible treatment to a disabled colleague. It just goes to show that STRS is heartless and greedy compared to what employees and staff receive that the pensioner's pay for.

Lastly, I would like the executive director to take a good hard look at the evaluations that were filled out critiquing his performance in the past fiscal year. STRS pensioners feel very much the same way about comments made by those board members who actually gave truthful, honest answers about the reality of how this pension has been operated. A few other board member's answers to questions were actually quite ridiculous and pensioners reading these were wise to knowing what the truth really is.

In closing, I would like to say "BE A BETTER FIDUCIARY"!!