ORTA established the Pension Defense Fund to ensure it has the legal and professional resources necessary to continue its fight for pro-teacher policies and the reinstatement of pro-reform STRS board member Wade Steen.
In a huge victory for teachers this week, an Ohio court made a preliminary finding that pro-teacher board member Wade Steen should be reinstated to the STRS board. The magistrate determined Mr. Steen was wrongfully removed by the Governor last year. However, this victory was short lived because it appears the Governor has a hidden motive. Despite the Tenth District Court of Appeals findings, the Governor's office decided to brazenly interfere with the court.
After the Tenth District’s Courts finding, Brent Bishop resigned from the seat from which he was wrongfully appointed. Ignoring the court’s findings, the Governor boldly decided to usurp the power of the courts and the will of the people and wrongfully appoint yet another person, Brian Perera. ORTA will not stand by and watch one man’s hidden agenda stand in the way of bringing transparency and accountability to our pension system.
STRS is broken. Help us fight back by supporting board members like Wade Steen who are trying to fix it.
STRS Ohio Watchdogs
Chew on this!
What the media in Ohio have described as chaos at the STRS board is really nothing more than robust discussion about a system that has failed to deliver promised benefits to its members for over a decade.
Featured Post!
STRS Members File Lawsuit to Defend Educators’ Voice on the STRS Board
Plaintiffs Are Members of Ohio’s Three Largest Education Unions
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 16, 2025
STRS Members File Lawsuit to Defend Educators’ Voice on the STRS Board
Plaintiffs Are Members of Ohio’s Three Largest Education Unions
COLUMBUS — Today, members of the Ohio Education Association (OEA), the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT), and the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors (OC AAUP) filed a lawsuit in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas challenging an unconstitutional and discriminatory provision in the most recent Ohio state budget that strips educators of their rightful voice on the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board.
That legislation changes the current composition of the STRS Board (seven board members elected by STRS members and four politically-appointed members) by adding four more appointed members, effective September 30, 2025, and then gradually eliminating four elected positions. By the end of this month, elected members will be outnumbered by appointees, and by 2028, the STRS Board will have eight appointees and just three elected members.
The STRS Board is named as a defendant, but the lawsuit is only necessary because of the reckless actions of politicians. At the final stage of the budget process, the legislature’s Republican leadership — Speaker Matt Huffman and Senate President Rob McColley — inserted this policy, which was drafted by Rep. Adam Bird. Governor Mike DeWine signed the state budget into law and declined to veto this budget line item.
“This policy is the latest in a long line of attacks against educators in Ohio,” said Glenetta Krause, a district-wide teacher mentor for Cincinnati Public Schools and member of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, who is the lead plaintiff. “Statehouse politicians have underfunded our public schools, rolled back our collective bargaining rights, fully eliminated Ohio’s elected State Board of Education, and told us what we can and can’t teach. Now they’re taking away our representation on our own retirement board. This lawsuit is about restoring fairness and protecting our fundamental right to have a say in how our retirement is managed.”
This lawsuit alleges that the STRS Board changes are illegal for three reasons. First, this policy violates educators’ right to equal protection under the law because only the STRS Board was targeted by this action. Ohio’s other four public pension systems have boards where elected members are in the majority, and those systems will all retain their boards’ current composition.
Plaintiffs are also challenging the STRS Board changes for violating the “Three Considerations rule,” which requires that “Every bill shall be considered by each house on three different days,” and the “Single Subject Rule,” which requires that “No bill shall contain more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.” The lawsuit alleges that these rules were violated because (1) the STRS Board receives no direct state funding, and as such was not relevant to the state budget; and (2) the amendments were inserted in the budget during the final stage of the process, leaving no time for the amendments to receive three considerations or for the General Assembly to waive the Three Considerations Rule requirement.
“As teachers, counselors, college faculty, and other licensed educators, we’ve dedicated our careers to educating our students and building a brighter future in our communities and we deserve the right to retire with dignity and security,” said Kevin Cain, a retired teacher and counselor and member of the Ohio Education Association, who is also a plaintiff. “This is a clear overreach by state policymakers, and it’s not just targeted at teachers. By hijacking control of our pension fund, legislators are sending a thinly veiled threat to the other public pensions in Ohio, ‘if you make decisions we don’t like, we’ll take control of your pension too.’”
This policy change, which was preceded by baseless accusations and investigations targeting STRS Board members, comes at a time when the STRS Board has been able to restore member benefits that were rolled back almost a decade ago. In recent years, the Board, with approval from the fund’s actuary, has been able to once again provide some cost of living adjustments to retirees and begin to lower the years of service required for active members to receive full benefits.
Even Governor DeWine, who had previously been critical of STRS, praised the current direction of the STRS Board. In an interview in April 2025, he said “I’m looking at it from afar, but it seems that the board is working, and working in a productive way. I think we’ve, at least for a while now, we’ve come over from that problem that we’ve had in the past.”
“STRS’s elected board members have made real progress and have pledged to keep fighting to restore more of our benefits,” said Caleb Ochs-Naderer, a Professor at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and member of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors, another plaintiff in the lawsuit. “The power-hungry politicians at the statehouse want to take away our ability to elect our own advocates because they want control of our retirement savings. They just see dollar signs when they look at STRS, but educators like me see our years of hard work and our dreams for the future.”
Contacts:
OFT: Neil Bhaerman, nbhaerman@oft-aft.org, (412) 266-4899
OEA: Katie Olmsted, olmstedk@ohea.org, (614) 560-6299
OC AAUP: Sara Kilpatrick, sara@ocaaup.org, (614) 420-5718
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Teachers retirement board members sue Ohio attorney general
The chairman of the State Teachers Retirement System board and a former member filed a lawsuit Thursday against Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost for allegedly refusing to provide them with legal representation in a previously filed lawsuit.
STRS Ohio has failed in its mission to provide "Intergenerational Equity"
Since at least the early 1990s, STRS outside actuaries have introduced the importance of "Intergenerational Equity" at Board Meetings. Conceptually, all retirees should receive the benefits they earned and paid for throughout their careers, and STRS retirement benefits should be similar for all retirees.
The 'Entry Age Normal' system, used by the STRS actuary, plays a crucial role in determining the NORMAL COST for all employees throughout their careers. Until the pension changes in 2013, the NORMAL COST was consistently around 14.75% to 15.25% yearly. However, since the “pension reform,” the NORMAL COST has been just under 11% for around a decade. This means that current teachers are paying 14% for a retirement benefit worth less than 11%, highlighting the disparity in contributions and benefits.
STRS has failed in its mission to provide "Intergenerational Equity." The two main reasons this has occurred are actuarial miscalculations and underperforming investment returns. Since STRS documents show that the original 3% COLA was supposedly funded at each member's retirement, and then to have that critical component removed, we must place the blame where it belongs. Some of this could be the fault of the actuary, possibly when Sub. Sen. Bill 190 raised formulas, made career longevity enhancements, etc., but the overwhelming blame must be put on the investment team's and their advisors' performance.
Intergenerational Equity: Remember 30 and out?
Remember 30 and out? Let’s compare the current pension income of 1992 retirees with our recent 2022 retirees. Clearly, 30 years apart qualifies as an entire generation. Teachers used to be able to retire after 30 years of service, so let’s examine the intergenerational equity, or inequity, of the two groups.
A typical 1992 STRS retiree had an FAS of only $43,500, with a 63% formula for 30 years of service. This person began with an annual pension of $27,405 and now receives an annual pension of $46,585. This is less than it should be due to the 2012 “pension reform,” which reduced the 3% COLA by a third and, since 2017, has only yielded two ad-hoc formula increases for a total of 25 years of COLA out of 32 years. There were seven years without COLA's. Still, these retirees are behind by over 24% of their original pension purchasing power.
Today's 2022 STRS retiree, with a final average salary (FAS) of $80,000, more than 70% greater than the 1992 retiree, can be worse off due to “pension reforms.” If they retired at 30 years, their FAS provided only a 33% pension formula, and they statutorily will not receive COLAs for 5 years. They will receive the same annual $26,400 pension they started with over this period without any promises of a future COLA.
Meanwhile, the 1992 Retiree pensioners are paid $46,585 per year. They received a 3% COLA in 2023 and a 1% COLA in 2024. A pension plan without any inflation protection fails to be a pension plan.
Below is the simplified overview of the “pension reform plan” approved by legislators overseeing STRS Management.
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Withhold the promised 3% of COLAs until 21 billion dollars are saved.
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Implement an overly penalizing structure for retirement, where 30 years of service, which used to provide 66% of FAS, became reduced to 33% by August of 2021.
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Force people to work a minimum of 4 more years for an unreduced pension. This saves STRS $210,000 per retiree.
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Increase the Employee Contribution from 10% to 14% without increasing the Employer Contribution.
Is there any reason to doubt why the Public Plans Data - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College ranks STRS as the only pension plan in the US with a negative "Normal Cost?"
Bob Buerkle
Dean Dennis
July 23, 2024
Kathie Bracy's Blog
Kathie Bracy’s Blog is a forum for Ohio educators, sharing thoughts regarding their health care and pension system, STRS Ohio. Kathie’s blog is a virtual repository of STRS Ohio history since 2003. Many of the documents and articles featured in Kathie’s blog are contributed by John Curry, who manages a clearinghouse of emails, documents, and articles about STRS Ohio.
A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Baylor University School of Music, Kathie is a professional symphony musician by background. She is also a retired elementary classroom teacher (nonmusic), having taught in the Alliance (OH) City Schools 2-1/2 years and the Columbus Public Schools 30 years. Kathie's first job was as harp instructor at The University of Texas; currently she is a Lecturer in Harp at The University of Mount Union. As a retired educator and a life member of a number of professional organizations, including the Ohio Retirement for Teachers Association and the Ohio Education Association-Retired, she also worked with the Concerned Ohio Retired Educators (CORE) which officially disbanded in 2012, to help bring about badly needed reform in our teachers retirement system, STRS Ohio.
Ohio STRS Member Only Forum
The MOF was started in 2017 by Joe Lupo, a retired public school adminstrator, after the suspension of the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) by STRS Ohio. The MOF has over 35,000 members, active and retired teachers who are members of the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio. The MOF was instumental in electing the past five members to the STRS Ohio Retirement Board. The MOF Facebook group is a dynamic discussion about all things related to STRS Ohio and Ohio teachers' retirement benefits. Many of the documents and articles featured in the MOF are posted by John Curry, who manages a clearinghouse of emails, documents, and articles about STRS Ohio.
Pension Warriors
"I am America's leading forensic expert investigating pension and retirement plan abuses. My mission is to prepare you to fight to protect the pension you were promised." - Edward Siedle
Pension Warriors focuses on providing forensic insights to subscribers about pension and retirement plan abuses. Our goal is to explain mismanagement and wrongdoing in a manner that is both understandable and actionable. We don’t want to scare you—we want to prepare you to fight to protect your retirement security, i.e., to ensure that promises made are indeed, kept.