Trina Kay Prufer: If STRS never intended the cola to be guaranteed, why is this not NEGLIGENCE?

From Trina Kay Prufer

October 6, 2023

The lie, the cover-up and negligence

I am trying to find logic in this latest lie. The original lie is that the cola was never guaranteed. Now, what Neville is saying is that STRS staff made a mistake (a mistake that lasted 20 years) and they somehow ”forgot” to put any qualifiers on the “ 3% cola is granted” statement in the booklets. Also, Neville is claiming, “ actual benefits will be paid in accordance with STRS law in effect at the time of retirement” only meant the base benefit, even though this statement was changed later to mean current law.

This “small” mistake (leaving out any qualifiers such as ” cola is dependent of board policy”) has cost 150K teachers their financial security in retirement as teachers needed to know the necessity of planning for another source of income. Also, as Neville claims, STRS never intended the cola to be permanent, where were all the workshops, classes, and advice in STRS manuals preparing teachers on how to save for this eventuality?

Teachers were HURT by this mistake, and STRS was NEGLIGENT in not warning us, especially as STRS knew, or should have known, the information they provided was false. In fact, STRS had an entire legal department, whose job it was to write and/or edit and check all their documents for accuracy and legal liability. In fact Neville was an attorney for STRS at that time.

If STRS never intended the cola to be guaranteed, why is this not NEGLIGENCE? The key term here is INTENT. They cannot claim they did not know the cola could be taken away later, as Neville is telling us they knew. Remember, STRS is in uncharted waters here. There has never been a teacher retirement system, without social security, which has done this to their membership...and now they want to attain 100% funding, further amplifying our monetary loss.