Recently the board governing the State Teachers Retirement Fund (the pension fund for teachers) voted to award $9.7 million in performance-based incentives to its 90-member investment staff, despite having lost $3 billion in the first 11 months of the year.
STRS staff continues to get pay raises and bonuses despite massive investment losses and warning members about possible fund insolvency.
Ohio’s governor has a current salary of $159,182. The salary of the highest paid employee of Ohio STRS, in Fiscal Year 2021, earned $819,481, and the second-highest-paid STRS employee earned $584,415. Eighty-six STRS employees made more last year than the governor’s current salary!
Teachers are told we need to make sacrifices despite being promised a safe and secure retirement. To keep the fund alive, Ohio’s active teachers are forced to pay more of their paycheck into the pension fund (14% rather than the 10% from a few years back), and retired teachers lost their promised cost-of-living increases years ago.
As a retired teacher trying to make ends meet during record-high inflation, it’s infuriating. Who’s watching out for Ohio’s teachers? It certainly isn’t the Ohio legislature.
John Curry
Wapakoneta
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