OFT members win seats on Ohio teachers retirement system board
Winners vow to restore and preserve healthcare benefits
for retirees

Retired and active teachers in the Buckeye State can take comfort in knowing that the newest members of the state’s teachers retirement board are committed to making sure teachers’ pensions and healthcare benefits are safe and secure.

Last spring, two members of the Ohio Federation of Teachers were elected to the board of the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (STRS). Jeff Chapman and Mary Ann Flannagan won two of three contested seats on the board, marking the first time an OFT member has held a seat on the 11-member board.

Chapman, a recently retired elementary school teacher in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools, was elected to represent retired teachers. Flannagan, a guidance counselor in the Oregon City schools, won the open seat to represent active teachers. Another OFT member, Teresa Green, a retired elementary teacher from the Cleveland Municipal School District, ran for a second retiree seat on the STRS board, but did not win.

The Ohio STRS, which funds pensions and healthcare coverage for retirees, serves more than 430,000 active, inactive and retired public educators in the state. In recent years, STRS has faced some serious challenges. Last year, retirees were hit with sharp increases in their healthcare premiums as well as a reduction in benefits. In addition, excessive spending by past board members and administrators prompted state lawmakers to add more political appointees to the board. As a result, teachers lost their majority on the board.

“There was a lot of dissatisfaction with the system. People were ready for a change, and the candidates’ message connected with teachers,” says Tom Mooney, president of the OFT and an AFT vice president. The state federation’s grass-roots organization, Protect Our Pensions Ohio, supported the campaigns of each OFT candidate.

“Retirees are taking the brunt of the increase in healthcare costs, and many can’t retire because of those costs,” says Chapman. “Teachers shouldn’t be robbed of their right to retire.”

The new board members have promised to serve as watchdogs over teachers’ pension contributions and prevent any return to the wasteful spending of the past. They also are committed to preserving and restoring health insurance coverage for retired teachers as well as to protecting pensions from political interference.

“We want to restore the confidence of our constituents and the Legislature,” notes Chapman. “There are lots of ideas we shared during the campaign that we believe could work to foster competition among health insurance providers in order to control costs.”
Chapman and Flannagan will begin their four-year terms in September.

Little support for Bush's Social Security agenda
Most Americans oppose plan for private accounts of Social Security

The more that Americans are learning about the president’s risky plan for reforming Social Security, the less they like it. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released in late June found that more than twice as many respondents disapproved of President Bush’s handling of Social Security than approved of it: 64 percent to 31 percent, respectively.

While this is good news for those who oppose the president’s plan for private accounts, which critics say will cut benefits and swell the federal budget deficit by about $5 trillion over the next 20 years, AFT president Edward J. McElroy cautions that the threat to Social Security remains, and organized labor and its allies must remain vigilant.

The AFL-CIO’s Alliance for Retired Americans has been a leader in the fight to defeat President Bush’s plan. In June and July, the alliance’s Social Security “Truth Truck” made 57 stops in 27 states. The flatbed truck traveled from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore., carrying more than 1 million anti-privatization messages to the home districts of members of Congress.

“Our Truth Truck tours have been a great success, enabling thousands of seniors to let their members of Congress know they are against the reckless dismantling of Social Security,” says George J. Kourpias, president of the alliance, a national grass-roots organization representing more than 3 million seniors and retirees. “We feel that our message—don’t privatize Social Security—has resonated throughout the country and made an important contribution to the public debate about the dangers of privatization.”

Under the president’s plan, benefits for those making $37,000 in 2005 would be cut by $4,500 a year; those making $59,000 in 2005 would see their benefits slashed by $9,000 a year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Members of Congress who don’t want to go down with President Bush’s Social Security privatization plan next Election Day are abandoning the sinking ship.

Unfortunately, privatization diehards, including Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), and Reps. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), Jim McCrery (R-La.), Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Clay Shaw (R-Fla.) still are trying to advance the Bush plan. They are touting legislation they have introduced in their respective chambers as an effort to stop Congress from using the Social Security surplus to finance government programs. However, one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Johnson, has labeled the legislation “an achievable first step” toward private accounts.

“It shows that they have not given up on the privatization of Social Security,” says Bill Cunningham, associate director of the AFT department of legislation. The proposed plan would increase the federal deficit and undermine the Social Security system, he says.