ORTA: Ohio's teachers must be represented by STRS Board members who are elected by them and will advocate for them

Posted on ORTA site

July 6, 2024

Ohio's teachers must be represented by STRS Board members who are elected by them and will advocate for them

The recently formed ORSC STRS Subcommittee will meet on Monday, July 8th.

You will be able to watch the meeting on the Ohio Channel at 1:00 PM ET on Monday, July 8: https://www.ohiochannel.org/live/ohio-retirement-study-council.
Click here to read the meeting materials that have been prepared by ORSC for this meeting.
If you trust the ORSC STRS Subcommittee to protect your retirement benefits, do nothing.
If you don't trust the ORSC STRS Subcommittee to protect your retirement benefits, contact the committee members before the meeting. Contact information is posted below.
Talking Points:

•   equity: Teachers pay the contribution that is determined by STRS based on the calculations of the STRS staff and consultants. It's not the fault of teachers if those calculations are wrong, yet teachers are paying the price for those miscalculations.

•   Employer contribution: The employer contribution has remained the same for 40 years, while the employee contribution has increased to 14%. Ohio's legislators should increase the employer contribution to provide the funding needed by STRS to restore benefits.

•   STRS Ohio Board: Ohio's teachers must continue to be represented by Board members who are elected by them and will advocate for them.

•   Active teachers: How is the increase in employee contribution and years of service impacting your life?

•   Retired teachers: How is the suspension of the COLA impacting your life?

Watch the ORSC meeting on June 13, 2024

Sen. Romanchuk created the ORSC STRS Subcommittee at the close of this meeting.

ORSC STRS Subcommittee Members
Senator Mark Romanchuk (R) Committee Chair

•   22nd Senate District, which includes Ashland, Medina and Richland counties

•   Sen. Romanchuk is Chair of the ORSC STRS Subcommittee

•   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.j.romanchuk 

•   Twitter: @SenRomanchuk 

•   Email: sd22@ohiosenate.gov 

•   Contact Mark Romanchuk: https://ohiosenate.gov/members/mark-romanchuk/contact 

Representative Phil Plummer (R)

•   Ohio House District 39, Dayton

•   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlummerforOhio 

•   Twitter: @PhilPlummerOH40 

•   Email: rep39@ohiohouse.gov 

•   Contact Phil Pummer: https://www.ohiohouse.gov/members/phil-plummer/contact 

Representative Beryl Piccolantonio (D)

•   State Representative, Ohio House District 4, Gahanna

•   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BerylBP

•   Twitter: @BerylBrownPic

•   Email: rep04@ohiohouse.gov

•   Contact Beryl Piccolantonio: https://ohiohouse.gov/members/beryl-piccolantonio/contact

Dr. Anthony Podojil, Ph. D.

•   Email: APodojil@AHQE.org 

•   Executive Director, Alliance for High Quality Education: https://ahqe.org/ 

STRS Ohio Board members Rudy Fichtenbaum and Wade Steen are incurring legal fees, defending themselves against the lawsuit brought against them by A.G. Dave Yost. ORTA will use donations from the Pension Defense Fund to help them, if needed, pay their legal expenses. They have volunteered their time to support Ohio's teachers. Now it's time for us to show our support for them! Make a donation today to the ORTA Pension Defense Fund

Wade and Rudy's lawyers: court filings

July 3, 2024 

From ORTA

July 2, 2024

The ongoing debate over Ohio's teacher pension fund

Today at noon on Cincinnati Edition!

Dean Dennis, President of ORTA, will be a guest on Cincinnati Edition.

Ohio’s State Teachers Retirement System controls $90 billion invested on behalf of 500,000 active and retired teachers. But there is a debate among members over actively managed funds verses an index fund.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has launched an investigation into several STRS board members, and now one board member — known as one of the “reformers” — has resigned.

Amid the upheaval we examine how the state’s teacher pension fund is managed.

Guests:

    •   Lynn Hoover, interim executive director, State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio

    •   Dean Dennis, president, Ohio Retirement for Teachers Association
    •   Laura Bischoff, reporter, USA Today Network Ohio Bureau

Listen to this podcast at https://www.wvxu.org/show/cincinnati-edition 

David Pepper: Project 2025: Schedule F and the Attack on Science

From David Pepper

June 30, 2024

The Disturbing Facts Behind Chapter 3 of "2025"

Yesterday [06/30/2024], I released Chapter 3 of “2025” — a chilling pair of scenes about the wholesale replacement of civil servants with political loyalists, and how dangerous that is in an age of pandemics and climate science.

You can read Chapter 3 HERE.

[All three chapters may be viewed here.]

But for those of you who prefer non-fiction to fiction…

….here is the research that anchors the scenes I wrote. It is every bit as scary as the stories in the Chapter. Read on…

Project 2025: The Actual Plan

David Pepper is a lawyer, writer, political activist, former elected official, and adjunct professor, and served as the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021.

David Pepper's new novel "2025" scares the heck out of me, but I'm sharing it, anyway, and hope you will, too.

Note from Kathie Bracy

June 30, 2024

I don't normally get into politics on my blog as anyone who has followed it for any length of time would know. But after reading David Pepper's new novel, "2025", which virtually made my hair stand on end, I decided it was time to make an exception. It's basically a scenario on what could happen to this country if Donald Trump becomes president again.You can read a lot

about Project 2025 on the internet and come to your own conclusions. This book is a work of fiction, but based on fact, as David explains below. It's only three chapters long, and I read the entire thing yesterday. Whether he plans to add more, I don't know, but will certainly revise this post if that's the case. Regardless of party affiliation, this is something we all need to read and share.

David has written:

"PROJECT 2025 should disturb all of America—but almost no voters are going to read it.

"I’m writing a book to make Project 2025 and Trump’s promises as real as possible—fiction as to how it would play out with real lives, but backed up by the actual facts and citations and proposed policies.

"Please read and share"

Here' are the links to "2025": 

Introduction And Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 (includes links to Chapters 1 and 2; you'll need to scroll down to see Chapter 3)

About David Pepper: https://www.kettering.org/david-pepper/ 

More about Project 2025:

Project 2025  https://www.project2025.org/ 

What is Project 2025 And Why Is It Alarming?    https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-is-project-2025-and-why-is-it-alarming/

Added 7/1/24: Project 2025: The Actual Plan

David Pepper is a lawyer, writer, political activist, former elected official, and adjunct professor, and served as the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021.

Tom Curtis on how OEA has failed teachers: The OEA has failed to protect the most valued part of every teacher's career, our STRS pension system, from the scammers who have been looting it for over 30 years.

From Tom Curtis

June 30, 2024

I continue to be asked by STRS members what they can do to help.

There is really only one thing you and all of the membership can do and that is to try to educate the membership about the corruption and looting that has been on going at STRS for 30 years with the collusion and approval of the OEA and the Ohio Retirement Study Council (ORSC), and most recently, the Governor and all of his cabinet.

We are fighting an opponent few realize, huge corruption in this state by our politicians. STRS has been looted of multi-billions of dollars and the OEA has been there and colluded in that theft.

How the OEA-supported Board members could have been taken in so easily and gone down this path is beyond me, but that is exactly what has transpired and the OEA leadership at all levels is in total denial of this.

The vast majority of the local union presidents don't want to hear about this. They are not prepared to deal with it. They are teachers first and want to believe that the OEA is there to protect them, when the OEA has NOT protected our retirement system. They have failed us miserably.

Local union presidents do not have the time to be a teacher, union president, spouse, mother or father and deal with the fact that the union they represent, the OEA, has been and is a traitor to all educators. Most will not even listen to the reality of the situation.

The OEA has failed to protect the most valued part of every teacher's career, our STRS pension system, from the scammers who have been looting it for over 30 years.