Cathy Steinhauser to STRS board: "...we’re counting on you to grab the bull by the horns and do the right thing!"

Cathy Steinhauser's speech to STRS board December12, 2024

Cathy Steinhauser – 35 yrs., satellite teacher of Family & Consumer Sciences through Pickaway/Ross CTC for Circleville City Schools.

I’d like to welcome our new temporary executive director this month. Welcome, and STRS pensioners are counting on you to do what’s right in making decisions that impact our everyday lives while the Board searches for that permanent executive director. We understand that you have private equity experience, a background that is not reassuring to us, as we look to the board for transparency and investment in index funds so this concerns us deeply.

We are NOT fans of this type of investing because it has cost us dearly by way of COLAs. Even Warren Buffet, the 8th richest man in the world, has said that no pension should be invested in private equity. We’ve had a hard time the past 12 years since STRS reneged on their promise to provide an annual COLA. We’re frustrated, tired, some barely living retirement check to retirement check, and this has hurt us in more ways than any of you can imagine. We are ignored time and again because it seems that we are being labeled as whiners…we have legitimate complaints that need attention.

We really need some deep cleaning such as closing the cafeteria and gym, cutting the budget, selling the real estate, selling this building known among pensioners as the Taj Mahal, and downsizing staff-it’s ridiculous how many assistants to the assistants that are employed here. When school districts have to tighten their belts, RIFing takes place (reduction in force), budgets are cut, busing stops, higher fees for sports participation, and teachers’ salaries are frozen, just to name a few. The STRS staff, including the investment group, have no stake in this issue since their retirement is with OPERS so they don’t lose out on anything like a COLA. We’re tired of being the cash cows for STRS spending and staff need to share in the sacrifice like the pensioners.

I’m the person who has the reputation for reminding the board members and the STRS staff of their fiduciary duty for 23 board mtgs., yes 23! You would think by now the importance of the word FIDUCIARY would have eventually become more fully understood or accepted and acted upon by someone, after some time or repeatedly explained. Maybe you need to listen more carefully during this Public Participation event. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition reads as follows:

“A person who acts on behalf of another person of persons putting the client’s 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 other’s best interests”. In essence, it IS all about US, the PENSIONERS…NOT the STRS staff or STRS investment group or the STRS real estate staff…just ALL the pensioners, active/retired/and disabled. So we’re counting on you to grab the bull by the horns and do the right thing!