The governing board behind Ohio teachers’ pension had decided to vote on Thursday that recipients are to receive a 1% cost-of-living increase! What great news! Teachers honestly don’t get paid enough. I would know—The teacher that holds my admiration and respect rarely can pay for a meal on her meager wages. So imagine how hard it must be for retired teachers! Just dreadful I’m sure. Anyway, the retirement anniversaries are going to see a bump in Ohio, when the fiscal year starts on up on July 1st. By then, it’s been decided that the Ohio State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) has been accepting of the five-year delay rule. This is to say that now, teachers will have to work five years less in their cumulative years of service in order to be eligible for the pension once they retire. How amazing!
The board themselves had been on track to ask teachers with about 35 years of service on August 1st in order to be considered eligible for full pensions. The 35 years eligibility has been taken by the STRS board to be reviewed and as a result, the measure has the extension set for until August 1st, 2028.
This is definitely a huge development for Ohio Teachers.
The 1% cost-of-living adjustment is no small price. Such a delay will ring up a total of $825 million for the pension. The cost of which isn’t of concern in regards to the $88.1 billion fund. STRS is supposedly in talks about if even more bonuses are worthwhile. Such as an award of $11 million to investment staff.
As you may imagine, dozens of educators have been fighting the Ohio board for years on topics such as allowing for a wider government budget to justify a better means of carrying out business in schools. Handling spending cuts and rising tax rates is not entirely out of the control of the board. Such austerity is taken into account when the measures encourage contesting any reduction or elimination of the annual cost-of-living adjustment. In the springtime of last year, retirees saw a 3% cost-of-living adjustment for the first time in 6 years.
Furthermore, the Ohio STRS board have believed that the high inflation this year could very well justify 1.8% and even 2% increases. In addition, there has been much talk about cutting teachers slack and making the necessary amount of contributions a little less in quantity than it needs to be for working teachers to be placed within the fund.