STRS Flashback - 5 years ago - Incumbent loses spot on State Teachers Retirement System board‏

From John Curry, May 6, 2009

Canton Repository, May 9, 2004
By Paul Kostyu

Incumbent loses spot on State Teachers Retirement System board

COLUMBUS — In a stinging rebuke to the leadership of their unions, Ohio teachers elected Superintendent John Lazares to the board of the State Teachers Retirement System.

Lazares, who leads the Warren County Educational Service Center, defeated incumbent and current board chairman Eugene Norris of Columbus. He won by just 274 votes among the 44,976 that were cast by mail during the past several weeks.

The Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers had endorsed Norris and reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on his re-election campaign.

Lazares, on the other hand, was supported in large part by retired teachers, who were not eligible to vote because the seat belongs to an active teacher. Supporters stuffed teachers’ mailboxes at schools with fliers when they were not blocked by local union representatives.

The hotly contested election was prompted in part by news media accounts late last year about questionable spending at the pension system on artwork, staff bonuses, expenses and travel.

“I have to give credit to Ohio’s retired teachers,” Lazares said. “I knew it would be difficult to beat an incumbent, but teachers have always been my biggest supporters over the years.”

Lazares said he called Norris last week to wish him good luck and to thank him for running a clean campaign. “I can’t say that about OEA or OFT,” he said.

Norris said he accepted “the will of the people,” but didn’t have an explanation for his defeat. He said the board faces “complex issues with no simple solutions.”

He said he would continue to work on health-care issues and engaging system members during his remaining months on the board. “The system is in sound and good shape,” he said.

The closeness of the vote prompted one official and multiple unofficial recounts by 56 STRS employees who were paid $80 each to come in on Saturday to count the ballots in a very deliberative process, overseen by representatives of Norris, Lazares, the Ohio secretary of state and an internal auditor from STRS.

Ballots were mailed to 302,453 STRS members, but just 14.9 percent voted. After the first count showed Lazares ahead by 260 votes, Pamela Ennis, who represented Norris, asked for a recount. Lazares picked up four additional votes and Norris lost 10. The final vote was Lazares, 22,625, and Norris, 22,351.

Throughout the day, questionable ballots were pulled and sent to STRS Executive Director Damon Asbury, the candidates’ representatives and Cheryl Stewart from the secretary of state’s office. Of those ballots, 214 were rejected, many because no vote was cast. One ballot was ripped in half, and others had votes cast for write-in candidates including Daffy Duck, Yogi Bear and Gov. Bob Taft.

Lazares, who will take office Sept. 1, said he plans “to make sure STRS money is used efficiently. I will be very fiscally responsible.”

He said the effect of the retirees on this election should serve as a warning to incumbents or others who seek election to the board in the future. “They’re a very important force,” he said.

Lazares also said active teachers are more aware of how the pension system is operating. “They used to take it for granted,” he said. “I was one of those. Now they know they can’t be complacent.”

Columbus Dispatch re OEA staff wages: The OEA pays 102 employees six-figure salaries; five get more than governor

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/11/29/unionyes.ART_ART_11-29-08_A1_5PC2RH8.html?sid=101
OEA staff wages

Teachers union's pay a surprise to many

Saturday, November 29, 2008

By Bill Bush
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The average salary for Ohio teachers dropped last year for the first time in at least seven years, but that's not the case for most employees of the state's largest teachers union.

Counting everyone from receptionists up to the executive director, the median salary for the 234-person staff of the Columbus-based Ohio Education Association is nearly $82,000.

The OEA pays 102 employees six-figure salaries, including 34 who made more than $120,000 for the fiscal year that ended in August.

The highest paid employee is Executive Director Dennis Reardon, who was paid $176,317, according to the union's annual report on file with the U.S. Department of Labor.

OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks was paid $172,574, and the union's vice president and treasurer each were paid about $151,400.

"My gut feeling is that the average school teacher in our district has no idea what the average (union representative) is making," said Kevin Fourman, past president of the Bucyrus Education Association.

In all, three-fourths of the OEA staff make more than the $53,410 the average Ohio teacher was paid last school year, and almost one-third made more than the $113,890 average salary of the state's superintendents.

The OEA's officers and employees also were reimbursed a total of more than $2 million for business expenses, which the annual report doesn't detail. Almost half the staff were reimbursed more than $10,600 each, with the top reimbursement of $40,463 going to Vice President William Leibensperger.

The union says these reimbursements cover expenses including travel and supplies.

Spokesman Mike Mahoney said the salaries are appropriate for a staff that provides lobbying, research, education-improvement initiatives, legal services and communications comparable to other similar-size affiliates of the National Educational Association.

In response to the teachers' pay falling last year, the OEA froze the salaries of five top officials, Mahoney said.

Members pay $477 in annual dues to the union, which represents 130,000 people statewide, including Columbus public teachers.

"It's a very democratically run organization," Mahoney said. "We don't keep (the salaries) a secret."

But the leaders of some OEA locals contacted across the state said they had no idea that state union officials were paid so much.

"I am a little shocked," said Lima Education Association President Lori Ruschau-Will, whose local signed a new contract last year that included no pay raises.

"I was not aware that they made that much money.

"I think the classroom teachers have a problem with any management person making six figures. That's because they're not in the trenches dealing with the students day to day. Education is supposed to be about the students."

New teachers in Bucyrus are paid about $28,300 a year, and the top salary is a little more than $57,800, said Fourman, of the Bucyrus Education Association.

He said the state union officials' salaries would "raise an eyebrow" among teachers.

"I certainly think that somewhere out there, there would be an educator who would be surprised or resentful that (OEA officials are) making a lot more than the teachers in the classrooms," Fourman said.

The state's second-largest teachers union, the 16,250-member Ohio Federation of Teachers, paid President Susan Taylor $22,733 for the fiscal year that ended in June.

At the same time, the union reimbursed Cincinnati Public Schools, where Taylor is on leave from her teaching job, $100,700 for her salary and benefits.

The benefits account for about one-third of the reimbursement, Taylor estimated.

None of the federation's employees is paid more than $100,000.

The OEA does not report individual employees' benefits.

bbush@dispatch.com
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