Elected members can't be removed from Ohio teachers retirement board, judge rules

Posted on FB by John Curry

September 19, 2025 

Click this link to access the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AtXdZLOd_U 

Dean Dennis' speech to STRS board 9/18/2025

September 18, 2025

Dean Dennis-35 years CPS, ORTA Exec Chair

ORTA wants to publicly thank OFT, OEA, and the OC- AAUP for their collaboration and leadership in the filing of the lawsuit that sought to minimize the voices of our members.

We understand that the vast majority of legislators had no idea that the middle-of-the-night amendment to change the makeup of our Board was even in the annual budget bill. However, now that legislators are aware, please know that if you support this attack on our right to manage our own finances, we will devote our efforts to voting you out of office.

Now, let’s clarify what our elected board members have achieved over the last couple of years. They have completely revamped opaque and misleading Benchmarks that governed investment staff performance bonuses into transparent Benchmarks that are tied to indices. They have worked with our actuary, Cheiron, and developed a responsible three-tier Sustainable Benefit Plan to restore benefits. This plan accounts for shocks to the market and takes into account market recovery time. It is likely the most sophisticated benefit plan of Ohio’s five pension plans. Speaking of which, our pension plan is the closest to being fully funded of any of the five pension plans. There’s an old saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Now, here is what is broken: the Ohio legislature. They fail to fund our pension system adequately while diverting money away from public education. I’ll share that recently, ORTA didn’t publish two press editorials due to misleading information; the editorials conveniently ignored one of the main problems, which is the lack of funding. Instead, the editorials attempted to alarm the public by stating their property taxes could increase if an Employer Contribution rate were enacted, blaming the need solely on reckless STRS mismanagement. ORTA disagreed with this singular narrative, as our board has moved towards more transparency and investment accountability. The numbers speak for themselves: STRS pays out nearly $8 billion in benefits but takes in $4 billion in contributions. This puts too much strain on investments.   

While we’re on the topic of transparency, the Board’s consultants are consistently telling the STRS board, the STRS staff, and STRS members that the main problem is the Ohio Legislature. Simply put, Ohio legislators are, and have been, underfunding the pension system. 

However, it seems lately that when someone speaks truth to power in Ohio, Ohio’s power brokers pull out the artillery and try to silence them. A message to Ohio’s legislators: don’t underestimate the power of the voting booth.   

Mary Gierhart's speech to STRS board 9/18/2025

STRS Public Participation

9/18/2025

Hello. My name is Mary Gierhart, and I am a retired school psychologist. I worked in Delaware City Schools and then the Olentangy Local School District during my career in central Ohio. I also consulted as a school psychologist for eight years in a central Ohio charter school after my retirement. I am speaking out today because I am very upset and fearful with chronic feelings of frustration and anger. As a psychologist I know it is not healthy to keep these negative feelings inside. OUR pension needs to be restored. STRS is not in chaos or turmoil because of its members.

I’m upset because it seems like very few people really care about what is happening to the members of STRS. The general public, our legislators, the STRS staff, the ORSC, our union, and even some board members seem to believe all is well with our retirement system.  However, all is not well. It is very difficult for members to plan for retirement due to the changing rules regarding needed years of service and lack of our guaranteed COLA.  How would you feel if you retired and then one day, seemingly out of the blue, you got a letter from Social Security or OPERS stating that you would not be getting a COLA that year, or for five years, or for an unknown number of years?  How would you feel if you were an 85-year-old retired teacher and you were in poverty, really needing that COLA to help pay your bills or get your medicine? I fear that that could be me and many others in the future since no COLA means a fixed income with yearly rising prices and inflation. And do not blame teachers for not planning for the future. Many members have planned well, but many others have had life situations that have impacted their savings and/or investment opportunities such as a death of a spouse, working in a poorer school district, rising inflation, and many other unseen circumstances.

I am frustrated and angry with the feeling that we have been misled and even lied to.  I understand that the solvency of the pension is the primary focus. However, I feel like we are constantly being thrown under the bus by our legislators and investment staff with no one at STRS, the ORSC, some of the STRS board, or our union going to bat for us. Would you not be angry, upset and frustrated with the following occurrences?

    1. Loss of a written guaranteed 3% COLA and increase in the number of years required for unreduced retirement. A current preliminary Global Governance Advisors (GCA) guiding principles goal for retirees is staying informed about health care and COLA changes. The goal of STRS should be reinstating the COLA! Any life coach knows if you write your goals down on paper, they are more apt to be successfully attained.

    2. Town hall meetings not addressing members’ concerns but spewing questionable information about the premier retirement system.

    3. Loss of a half of a billion dollars from an investment in Panda Power Funds, and then not disclosing the loss for quite some time.

    4. Hiring and paying two consulting companies to advise our investment staff. Why then do we have so many investment staff on payroll?

    5. Investing in private equities with high fees, illiquidity, and lack of transparency.  I believe the private equity firms even got our board to sign off on allowing the fees to remain secret.

    6. Noncompliance with the court order for transparency, also related to number 5 above.

    7. Lack of a fiduciary focus on the members when staff bonuses are given even during years of poor investment outcomes (see #3 above.)

    8. Extravagant staff perks while members are hurting.

    9. The governor illegally removing an appointed member from the board, requiring a lawsuit, ultimately ending up in reinstatement.

    10.  In the middle of the night, passing the Ohio budget with changes to the STRS board (possibly illegally) after members had voted in a majority of reform/restore candidates. The new board will be mostly politically appointed people.

    11. Singling out only STRS for legislative changes to the board.

I could go on and on, but my time is waning. How can STRS allay my fears and gain my confidence? Try addressing some of the above concerns.

Trina Prufer’s speech to STRS board 9/18/2025

My name is Trina Prufer. I am a retired school psychologist and my late husband was a college professor. Between us, our careers in public education spanned 70 years. Today I thought I would read a somewhat edited version of a post I wrote a few years ago after having watched my first STRS board meeting. The title of my talk is: “The Tyranny of the Bar Graph”

I watched some but not all of the proceedings yesterday. Missing from the presentations were discussions on the long term effects of STRS policies on retirees, which a decade ago sacrificed retirees’ financial security to the altar of the “unfunded liability”. What happens to retirees in the future is apparently of no concern. We are just the unfortunate casualties of the bar graph, which projects how well STRS will be doing in 10 years.

The reality is that there are 500 thousand members of STRS, and no other teacher retirement system in the nation has harmed its constituency to this degree. You would never know that by listening to the speakers.

Because we are invisible and left out of the discourse, there is no urgency to find equity for members. STRS has been defining the COLA as an “enhancement” . That is exactly the problem. Instead of facing the issue, its name was changed. Now that was simple.. all done, no problem anymore. Why aren’t teachers grateful when a 1% COLA is bestowed on them?

STRS, the system, conveys denial, disinformation and nonsense: Examples include:  “the COLA was never guaranteed” “STRS is a premier retirement system” and “membership is satisfied with the performance of STRS”. Instead of acknowledging that retirees are heading off a financial cliff,  STRS produces FLUFF …and lots of it.

STRS is a failure, not because it was 49% underfunded a decade ago. It is a failure because there is no moral core to the institution itself. There are no long term solutions for sustainability other than harming teachers. It is not fighting FOR US… it is fighting FOR US to take the financial hit of past institutional mistakes, with a dose of profiteering on the side. To the victor belong the spoils. That is exactly what  “reform” legislation was designed to do.

The success of a retirement system is not measured by a column on a bar graph, but by the quality of the lives of its retirees. Using this standard, how well is STRS doing?

Cathy Steinhauser's speech to STRS board 9/18/2025

 

Karen Loeffler's speech to STRS board 9/18/2025

STRS Board Meeting 09/18/2025

My name is Karen Loeffler. I retired in July 2012 from Pickerington Local School District, with 30 years experience as a high school classroom teacher and as a middle school counselor. I also spent countless hours as a volunteer in Pickerington, in a variety of capacities.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. It requires, and demands, an educated populace, one that is engaged and participatory. As educators, at any grade level, from kindergarten through high school, and beyond, we teach, beyond letters and colors, beyond numbers and shapes, critical thinking and processing skills. Beyond content, we teach not what to think, but how to think. Not just how to recognize problems, but how to brainstorm possible solutions, and work with others on choosing and then implementing solutions. We also teach our students that failure is not the end of a process, but part of the learning process. What went wrong? What could we have done differently? What are the next steps? Giving up, quitting, are not options. Instead, we  continue on.

This, then, applies to our own experience, here, in this board room. Some of us are physically present, many participate virtually, and many more by following through various forms of media and communication. But the common thread is that we are engaged in the process. We are not disinterested observers. We have worked hard to immerse ourselves in the process, and supported, through our votes, board candidates who we felt would be good representatives, and take their fiduciary responsibilities seriously, with fidelity and integrity. We don’t ask for perfection, but commitment to the best interests of the members.

And now, the legislature, with the support of the governor, has ripped away, indeed stolen, our voting rights. We will now be ruled by political appointees, in control of the board. For those who might think that these appointees will operate in our best interests, adhering to the same fiduciary duties as our duly elected board members, I would like you to recall an incident from last summer. In July, 2024, at a special board meeting, there was a discussion about whether or not to award the usual staff bonuses. Many opposed the awarding of bonuses in light of the continuing lack of COLA’s for the members. An attorney at the board table, a political appointee, informed the board members that if they did not award the bonuses to the investment staff, they would be violating their fiduciary duty to said staff. So, you will forgive my skepticism, and the skepticism of many of my colleagues, in regard to the supposed commitment of the appointees to their fiduciary duties to the members of STRS. They need to be reminded, in the strongest possible terms, that STRS is the State TEACHERS Retirement System, that exists for the benefit of the members. And this fight is not yet over!

Robin Rayfield's speech to STRS board 9/18/2025

Good morning,

My name is Dr.Robin Rayfield, Executive Director of ORTA and a retired member of STRS.

As the chapter of democratic control of the STRS pension system is on the verge of ending, I think that it is important to stop and think about where we are and how we got here.

Several years ago, ORTA leadership met with the chair of the ORSC and asked for help in making reforms to STRS. Our concerns at that time remain today.

1.  Transparency with regards to fees, costs, and expenses, especially with the investment program at STRS.

2.  Investment philosophy at STRS. ORTA believed and still believes that a passive approach to investing our money would produce much greater returns and at a mch lower cost. Historical data prove these beliefs to be accurate.

The chair of the ORSC was adamant that the legislative bodies were not the answer to STRS’ member concerns. His advice was simple. Since STRS has a majority of board members elected by the membership, reform must come through electing reform-minded individuals to the STRS board. Through several election cycles, and despite interference by the governor and STRS leadership, the reform movement has been successful. However, reform that is sustainable has to be incremental and takes time. Unfortunately, one party rule in Ohio has reared its ugly head once again and is threatening the democratic process. Educator voices are being silenced.

My hope is that public educators across Ohio will become engaged in this fight for democracy. Public education is the foundation upon which our society is built. Without a healthy public school system comprised of dedicated and well represented teachers, our society is threatened.

This fight has morphed from a ‘fight for inflation protection’ for retired teachers to a fight for what is right and just for people. Instead of eliminating opposing points of view, our elected officials should develop solutions or better responses to the challenges we face.

To the elected members of this board… Thank you for your service.

To the appointed members of this board… I hope that you are able to see opposing perspectives and work to develop solutions. The lives of over 300,000 people depend on you.

Bob Buerkle's speech to STRS board 9/18/2025

 

Judge Temporarily Blocks Law Removing Educators’ Voice on the STRS Board

From OEA

September 17, 2025

Ohio Education Association

Judge Temporarily Blocks Law Removing Educators’ Voice on the STRS Board

Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Andy Miller issued a major ruling to protect educators’ voice in the future of the State Teachers Retirement System by granting a temporary restraining order preventing the provisions in the state budget affecting the STRS Board makeup from taking effect until a preliminary injunction hearing is held. This ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Ohio Education Association (OEA), the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT), and the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors (OC AAUP).

Read the full press release on OEA's website:

https://www.ohea.org/judge-temporarily-blocks-law.../

#publiceducationmatters #retirement #pressrelease State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio Ohio Conference AAUP

Lawsuit filed against STRS by OEA, OFT and AAUP

Ohio Education Association  Follow

September 16, 2025 3:00 PM

STRS Members File Lawsuit to Defend Educators’ Voice on the STRS Board

Plaintiffs Are Members of Ohio’s Three Largest Education Unions

Today, members of the  Ohio Education Association, the Ohio Federation of Teachers,, and the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors (Ohio Conference AAUP) filed a lawsuit in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas challenging an unconstitutional and discriminatory provision in the most recent Ohio state budget that strips educators of their rightful voice on the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio Board.

The STRS Board is named as a defendant, but the lawsuit is only necessary because of the reckless actions of politicians. At the final stage of the budget process, the legislature’s Republican leadership — Speaker Matt Huffman and Senate President Rob McColley —  inserted this policy, which was drafted by Rep. Adam Bird. Governor Mike DeWine  signed the state budget into law and declined to veto this budget line item.

Read the full press release:

https://www.ohea.org/strs-members-file-lawsuit-to-defend.../

#publiceducationmatters @topfans #retirement OEA - Retired Ohio's New Educators OEA Aspiring Educators North Eastern Ohio Education Association Central OEA NEA Southwestern Ohio Education Association East Central Ohio Education Association South-Western Education Association Southwestern Ohio Education Association #pressrelease NEOEA RETIRED