How can I describe a plan so creative? Well, let's just call it Diabolical. STRS just takes the COLA that they promised us and they pump it right back into the "Pension Fund."

Bob Buerkle addressed the STRS Ohio Retirement Board on May 20, 2026.

A look at the two pictures I have given you shows the normal way pensions are funded, as presented by Cheiron in October, 2024. It's been the same since Harvard published this diagram in 1965. But look what STRS has done to it. Instead of three income sources STRS has added a fourth, through its devious manipulation of the total pension package that Retirees were promised.

For years, Ohio Legislators, the Governor, the Attorney General, the Treasurer and the ORSC, have seen Actuarial reports that the 14% in STRS Employer Contributions have been insufficient to properly fund the pension plan. In fact, these contributions are less than 50% of the national average for employers in non-social security states.

In Ohio Revised Code 3307.14, there is a solution to underfunding that says that whenever there is a pension shortfall that leads to inadequate funding, the Employers shall make up the deficit by increasing their contributions. Why has this not happened even once in the last 43-years, while teacher contributions have increased nine times?

Has STRS Management done everything they could to educate, and recommend solutions to the STRS Members and the Unions representing them? These include the OEA, the OFT, the AAUP, ORTA and all other retiree organizations. As a unified coalition they could lobby on behalf of all 550,000 members who have now been waiting for a solution to this underfunding problem for more than 25-years.

What is unacceptable is for any Board member who is trying to express a new investment idea or concept, to be harassed and sabotaged by staff before they can even complete their presentation.

Considering what has happened to two of our previous Board Members, our current Board members might now be thinking, "I can't risk my reputation and I can't afford to have something like that happen to me."

STRS has created a fourth income source for our Pension Fund. How can I describe a plan so creative? Well, let's just call it Diabolical. STRS just takes the COLA that they promised us and they pump it right back into the "Pension Fund." That's approximately 26% of the promised COLA increases to retirees, pumped right back into the fund. It has made STRS Management look like geniuses to the penny pinching Legislature for over a decade. Even though STRS Actuaries and Management and the Legislators, all know that STRS has been underfunded for decades, there has been no employer contribution increase in 43 years, while teacher contributions increased 9 times over the same time period.