Thursday, June 29, 6000
Tuesday, February 15, 4000
STRS Ohio Watchdogs: a public Facebook group you can join
Sunday, August 27, 3950
Have you joined the Ohio STRS Member Only Forum on Facebook?
Click image to enlarge
Monday, June 25, 3900
Monday, June 24, 3850
Wednesday, May 28, 3800
Friday, February 27, 3750
Sunday, April 11, 3700
Thursday, March 10, 3650
Friday, February 24, 3550
Monday, April 29, 3450
I know, it's weird.........
Monday, February 24, 3400
This is an abbreviated version of the original 'Handy links' post. Click here to view a more complete list. (Some of it is old.)
State legislators.......State of Ohio website
Tuesday, February 24, 3350
Dennis Leone's STRS Report to ORTA, March 2007
Tuesday, February 23, 3300
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Trina Prufer: Thoughts after the June 2025 STRS board meeting
From Trina Prufer
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Reform at STRS: Rudy Fichtenbaum, STRS Board Chair, answers questions many have had since the June 2025 board meeting
Reform at STRS
Friday, June 13, 2025
Robin Rayfield to STRS board: It may be time for the majority on this board to simply use their majority to force the changes desired.
Robin Rayfield's comments to STRS board
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Robin Beebe to STRS board: I have been very busy today looking for elephants in this room. Perhaps we all must be vigilant and "look out" for something else???? Has anyone seen any SNAKES IN THE GRASS???
Robin Beebe's remarks to STRS board
Susan Brannan to STRS board: The Fiduciary responsibility of the 11 on this Board is to manage the STRS pile of CATNIP worth $95 Billion for Actives & Retirees.
Susan Brannan's speech to STRS board
June 12, 2025
Hello,
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Trina Prufer: "In the culture of STRS, the highest paid non-contributors actively work in secret against the contributors. Behind the scenes slanted information is fed to legislators, the media and politicians. The non-contributors prosper when the system puts contributors last."
By Trina Prufer
Wednesday, June 04, 2025
A timely commentary by Ohio's Teacher of the Year
I’m Ohio’s Teacher of the Year. Proposed state budget changes betray our students.
Sunday, June 01, 2025
Colleen Marshall's special update on STRS; The Spectrum, 06/01/2025 regarding the state legislature's attempt to remove teachers' power to control their own pension system
See the video here; Colleen Marshall interviews Robin Rayfield and Dean Dennis in the opening footage:
Saturday, May 31, 2025
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
Thursday, May 29, 2025
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.
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
I am asking this board to make an adjustment to the actuarially reduced benefit schedule for all those who retired in 2024. This would simply reflect the change from 34 years of service down to 33 years in a span of 5 months. I ask you to do this because it is the right thing to do for all 2024 retirees.
Lisa Barber's speech to STRS board
May 15, 2025
Good afternoon, I am here today to ask you to be equitable.
My name is Lisa Barber. I retired from teaching in June 2024 with 32 years of service credit and a reduced benefit. The required years of service at that time were 34. Just 5 months after my retirement, the board reduced the years of service for full benefits to 33. What new information did you have at that time that you did not have when I and many others retired?
Adding insult to injury, all retirees were given a December supplement IF they had been retired for a year or more. So, I did not receive a supplement.
Had the 33 years of service been in place when I retired, my pension (with the actuarial reduction) would be close to $500 more per month. I would not have delayed my retirement, however.
In the April 2025 update the board announced another decrease in years of service for an unreduced benefit. That was 9 months after I retired. The new requirement is 32 years, then the years of service increase, then return back to 34 years beginning in 2032. I am sure those still teaching find this arbitrary and inequitable. I certainly feel the two decreases in required service credit just months after my retirement were very unfair.
I am asking this board to make an adjustment to the actuarially reduced benefit schedule for all those who retired in 2024. This would simply reflect the change from 34 years of service down to 33 years in a span of 5 months. I ask you to do this because it is the right thing to do for all 2024 retirees.
Monday, May 19, 2025
Dan MacDonald's report on the May 14-16 STRS long, long board meeting
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Blade Editorial: STRS chaos internal
Editorial: STRS chaos internal
Cleveland.com: Guarding actuarial health should be job one for teachers’ pensions
From the Toledo eBlade