At the March meeting of the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) Board, the Board voted in favor of two benefit plan changes — one that impacts current retirees, and one that could impact certain future retirees.
The approved changes take effect on July 1, 2022, and include:

• A one-time 3% cost-of-living increase (COLA) that will be paid to eligible benefit recipients. The COLA will be implemented as applied under current Ohio statute — that is:
• An increase of 3% of base benefit will be added to the monthly payment in fiscal year 2023 for benefit recipients who began receiving benefits on June 1, 2018, or earlier, and will apply to future monthly payments.
• The date of the increase is the anniversary date of retirement, which always falls on the first of the month. For example, any teacher who retired effective July 1 (2017 or earlier) will receive a COLA on July 1, 2022. A teacher who retired effective June 1 (2018 or earlier) will receive a COLA on June 1, 2023.
• Members who retired July 1, 2018, or later are not eligible for a COLA at this time (must have received benefits for 60 months to be eligible for COLA).
• For active members, elimination of the age 60 requirement for retirement age and service eligibility that was set to take effect in 2026. Now, the final change to the phased-in age and service requirements will be made Aug. 1, 2023, when 35 years of service will be required for an unreduced retirement.

In conjunction with the Inter-University Council (IUC), which represents the presidents of the four-year universities, we advocated to the STRS Board that any “benefit plan improvements” should include a reduction in contributing member contributions. While elimination of the age 60 requirement will be of benefit to teachers who began their careers fresh out of college, it will not benefit most higher education faculty, who do not begin their careers until much later and thus are unable to achieve 35 years of service prior to turning 60.

We will continue to advocate for plan changes that are more equitable among retirees and all types of active educators.

In early April, faculty who belong to the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) will receive a ballot in the mail to vote for STRS Board members. Eligible voters will be able to cast their votes by mail, phone, or online. Given the continued mail delays, we recommend casting your ballot by phone or online.

The OCAAUP Board has endorsed Elizabeth Jones for the retired member seat and Julie Sellers for a contributing member seat. Only retirees will be able to vote for Ms. Jones, while only active educators can vote for Ms. Sellers.

Jones and Sellers are both members of the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) and both hail from the Cincinnati area. Last year, Elizabeth Jones ran on a platform with our own Professor Rudy Fichtenbaum, but unfortunately, did not earn enough votes to join Dr. Fichtenbaum on the STRS Board. This is Julie Sellers’ first time running.

The OCAAUP Board made the decision to endorse these candidates for several reasons:
-They sought our endorsement.
-They share Dr. Fichtenbaum’s vision of changing the culture at STRS — a culture that has left retirees without the benefits they were promised and active members contributing more to the system than will be the value of their pension upon retirement.
-They come highly recommended from AAUP members and trusted OFT colleagues.

Below you can read about their candidacies in their own words.

Elizabeth Jones:

I’m a retired High School English teacher and guidance counselor with more than 30 years experience at Cincinnati Public Schools. Throughout my career I’ve been involved in the fight for fair pay and retirement security for educators – first as my union’s Collective Bargaining Chair during my teaching years, and now as the President of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers Retired, Local 1520-R.

I amped up my activism on retirement issues when our COLA was discontinued after 2013 and ran for President of my retiree local shortly after that. As President, I have attended STRS meetings regularly and have mobilized my membership to fight for the reinstatement of the COLA. I’ve also sought out independent information from the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS) and the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) that has helped inform my views on improvements that must be made at STRS. 

I am running because STRS needs a change in direction and that will only happen with new voices and ideas on the STRS Board. 

As a board member, my top priority would be to reinstate the COLA without creating any additional burdens on contributing members. Contributing members have already seen their benefits decrease due to a longer years of service requirement and age requirement. Retired members and contributing members must all move ahead together without letting ourselves be divided. To do this, STRS will need to move to a lower risk investment strategy that can sustainably increase our rate of return, and move away from hedge fund and private equity investments with their costly fees. 

Julie Sellers:

I’m an STRS contributing member, with 20 years of experience as an elementary school teacher before being elected President of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, Local 1520 in 2009. 

In addition to my role as CFT President, I also currently serve on the Executive Board of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council and the Executive Committee for Ohio Federation of Teachers, and as co-chair of the Ohio 8 Coalition, which is made up of district superintendents and union presidents from Ohio’s eight largest school districts. 

I have always fought at the local level to make sure educators can retire with dignity. I’m running for the STRS Board because I want to fight for all educators to have that dignity. I’m not afraid to be a watchdog or to call people and institutions out when needed. I’ll push the Board to be more transparent and to stop doing the same old things that have kept STRS from recovering financially. 

I’ve been involved with retirement issues since 2008, when actions were taken to make the system more soluble in response to the Great Recession. Unfortunately, the actions that have been taken in the last 14 years have not stabilized STRS, and contributing members are carrying the heaviest burden from that failure. 

We pay the second highest contribution rate in the country (for statewide teachers pension systems), yet we’ve seen it become harder and harder to retire with full benefits. I’ll fight to reduce the years of service requirement and reduce or eliminate the age requirement. We can do that with smarter investments, increased transparency, and a long overdue increased contribution from employers. 

I speak to CFT members everyday and that has given me a great understanding of the wide array of stressors that contributing members are facing as we do our jobs through a global pandemic. Having a secure retirement should not be one of those stressors, it should be a guarantee. 

On February 2, the Miami University advocacy chapter of the AAUP announced at a membership meeting that they are launching a card campaign to unionize the faculty at the university.

The decision to initiate a union campaign was prompted by long-standing issues impacting working conditions, shared governance, academic freedom and compensation.

Cathy Wagner, President of Miami’s AAUP chapter and a lead organizer, noted that layoffs at the institution have disproportionately impacted instructional staff. 

“We are deeply concerned about the huge drop in the number of full-time instructional staff from 2019-20 to 2020-21—almost 150 full-time, over 300 short-term overall—a decrease of 13%. That’s nearly double the drop for both non-instructional staff and management. Meanwhile, at the Oxford campus, enrollment of the first-year, incoming class grew by nearly 18%,” Wagner stated.

Organizers of the union drive will collect signed cards from faculty to submit to the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) to petition for a union election. An election will then take place among all eligible faculty of the proposed bargaining unit to decide whether a union is established with the AAUP as the exclusive bargaining representative.

If successful, Miami University would become the 11th four-year university in Ohio with a unionized faculty body, and the 16th AAUP bargaining unit in Ohio.

The Ohio Conference AAUP is fully supportive of this unionization effort. We believe that a collective bargaining agreement is the best way to protect and promote AAUP principles — namely academic freedom and shared governance — as well as ensure a commitment to the instructional mission of an institution.

Here is some news coverage of the announcement:

Cincinnati Enquirer: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2022/02/02/miami-university-faculty-organizes-form-bargaining-union/9300376002/

Miami University Student Newspaper: https://www.miamistudent.net/article/2022/02/miami-faculty-announce-unionization-plan

At the beginning of this year, we received notice from the attorney of the late Harmon Dean Cummings of a gift in the amount of $2,000 to the Ohio Conference AAUP. In his will, Cummings specified that the gift should be used “to provide assistance to faculty in need of an advocate.”

Dr. Cummings was the former head of the Music Department at Marietta College, which is a private liberal arts college located in Marietta, Ohio. Cummings was a graduate of Oklahoma State University and University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, where he earned his PhD.

At our latest board meeting in January, the OCAAUP board of trustees voted to use the gift to establish a fund that will assist private university faculty that may need legal or other support. We will provide more specifics about the fund and how to request a grant in the near future.

Below are the candidates who are running for this year’s OCAAUP elections:

• President: Gretchen McNamara, Wright State University
• Secretary: Lisa Voigt, Ohio State University
• At-Large Member from Private Institution: Peter J. Tandler, Walsh University

We thank Professors McNamara, Voigt, and Tandler for stepping up to run for these positions!
Despite there being just one candidate per office, we are required to furnish ballots to every Ohio AAUP member. In March, you will receive an email from the company BallotBoxOnline to vote securely.