Trina Prufer: What bothers me most is the way in which the state government, with the stroke of a pen, took over control of our retirement savings. It was done in the dead of night, in secret and was carried out to circumvent the legislative process.

A Bad Dream 

By Trina  Prufer

July 2, 2025

We don’t yet know the extent of the possible financial damage to us as individuals, but we must find out. We may not be able to do anything about it, yet, but we can expose STRS for what it is… an organization that makes a mockery of democracy and the public pension system.

It is 5:00 in the morning and I have been awake for about a hour, still unable to shake off the unease from an anxiety dream about being lost. I realize that it’s just a dream, but the fear is still real. I am 75 years old, and have been hit with the fact that I have been scammed by the very government I believed would fulfill its promise of financial security and peace of mind in old age. 

I really hate saying this…however STRS, in cahoots with bad state actors, is run like a criminal organization. How else to explain how our collective retirement savings could have been taken over by a group of politicians? We have no guarantees as to what our future benefits will look like, and there are no checks and balances on the malfeasance. The laws of the State of Ohio do not apply to us. If fact, the law has been distorted, twisted into a pretzel and used against us. 

What bothers me most is the way in which the state government, with the stroke of a pen, took over control of our retirement savings. It was done in the dead of night, in secret and was carried out to circumvent the legislative process. It will only intensify the financial injustice of not receiving the benefit we worked for over the course of our working lives. I don’t believe anything this DUPLICITOUS has ever happened to a group of public teachers before. 

We don’t yet know the extent of the possible financial damage to us as individuals, but we must find out. We may not be able to do anything about it, yet, but we can expose STRS for what it is… an organization that makes a mockery of democracy and the public pension system.