Who Do You Trust: Teachers/Retirees, or the Politicians? Another Potential Attack on Democracy and Representation

The “reformers” have won so much, it’s sparked a sea change in the overall board, including a flipping of the board majority itself in a dramatic meeting close to a year ago.

But ever since this side started winning a few years ago, irregular things have happened right around election time (often after the votes are cast and before the results are announced) to thwart the outcome.

For several years, there’s been a spirited debate between two factions of the $90B Ohio teachers pension board, called STRS. On one side are “reformers” who believe the fund should “switch to index funding;” on the other, a faction that wants to stick with a model of “actively managing the funds,” which also comes with higher fees. “Reformers” also want “a cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. The COLAs were suspended for more than 150,000 retired Ohio teachers for five years starting in 2017. They were reinstated, but there has been a suspension of increases, significant for retirees who need this money and are dealing with inflation.”

I don’t have a dog in the fight, but teachers and retirees do because: 1) their years of hard work and contributions built the pension fund to its $90B+; 2) they rely on the pension for their economic well-being; and 3) they elect seven of the board’s 11 members (the other four are appointees).

And earlier this week, an election was held for the teachers pension board.

And just as has happened for a number of elections in a row, the “reformer” faction won the election decisively.

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"There are 500,000 teachers in the teachers pension system, so my hope is that's a voice that can rally loudly against the idea of stripping away their democracy of the managing of their own funds, in a pension fund they built. It's a huge pension fund. They built it and the idea that the politicians would stip away their voice in the direction of the fund of their own money is outrageous" - David Pepper

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Read David Pepper's FULL POST online at https://davidpepper.substack.com/p/who-do-you-trust-teachersretirees