Bob Buerkle's message to Ohio legislators: Any legislative actions which would take away the authority of the rightfully and democratically elected Reform STRS Board Members will unify active and retired teachers as never before. It has taken more than a decade of creating social networks with over 60,000 members. That number will quickly double or triple if the legislature takes away our voting rights.

Ohio STRS Member Only Forum

Bob Buerkle

May 31, 2025

I write this today, expecting that there will be at least one or more legislators who will see my thoughts and consider what might happen if they try to pull any shenanigans with our STRS Board structure.

Any legislative actions which would take away the authority of the rightfully and democratically elected Reform STRS Board Members will unify active and retired teachers as never before. It has taken more than a decade of creating social networks with over 60,000 members. That number will quickly double or triple if the legislature takes away our voting rights.

Over the last five years, all seven of the previous non-reform Board Members have been swept from their positions. If legislators think we can be pushed around again they should re-think that idea, or risk being swept from office themselves.

They should also know that STRS retirees are already on a downward spiral towards poverty. You may ask, how can that be, given that the average STRS Retiree pension is around $3900 per month?

Well, just since 2020 our retirees have fallen 23% behind inflation. STRS has all retirees on a lifetime pension path worth only 50% or less than the original pension purchasing power our retirees had at retirement.

Two things must happen to avert this disaster. First, the losses we have already suffered must be restored to at least the level that the legislature restored retirees to in 1999, which was 85% of original pension purchasing power. Some of our current retirees are already now behind over 30%.

Second, proper funding and/or changes in investment policies must be undertaken. For over a decade, Callan Associates LLC. was the investment advisor for STRS. They were also the investment advisor for the Nevada Pension System, which employs only three people to run their investments, nearly all of which are index funds that cover each of the asset classes recommended by Callan. In an investment article in NCPERS, Callan stated that the Nevada System had outperformed all other public pension plans over the last 20-year period, while also having the lowest investment expenses.

Trina Prufer comments on Aaron Hood's version of a recent Town Hall in Cleveland Heights

How NOT to Run a Town Hall 

[As conducted by Aaron Hood, interim director of STRS]

By Trina Prufer

May 29, 2025

1. Assume your audience is simpleminded and naive, and that teachers are unaware that an STRS retirement benefit costs too much and delivers too little. 

2. Lose your temper.

3. Cut off all discussion that gets close to addressing issue #1. Redirect by talking too fast and changing the subject. Take up as much time as you can with PowerPoint pages that DO NOT ADDRESS stakeholders' concerns. 

5. Structure the town hall so questions from the audience will last only 30 minutes. Be defensive.

4. Heap accolades on YOUR staff, making it clear that they are YOUR people. As to the survival needs of 500K educators, they do not exist in your world, which is the modus operandi of STRS. 

5. Accept the unacceptable. Assume it is perfectly normal for a public pension system to NOT keep its promise of financial security to retirees. Ignore the fact that STRS provides the worst benefit as compared to the four others in Ohio. Ignore the State of Ohio’s betrayal to educators. Ignore the fact that Ohio’s educators have no guarantee whatsoever as to the “defined-benefit” they will eventually receive. 

A public pension system with a defined-benefit contribution rate, but no protections for the benefit received, is by definition a scam. A sham town hall cannot mitigate this simple truth.