Retired teachers in Ohio will not see a cost of living raise for the next five years. The State Teachers Retirement System board has voted to stop the payment increases after they re-assessed their assets and liabilities.
For nearly 100 years, every Ohio public school and charter school teacher has been paying into the STRS pension. Lately, retirees have been seeing annual cost of living adjustments of 2 to 3 percent a year. But the Great Recession put a strong hurt on the system’s investments.
Pension spokesman Nick Treneff says retirees also are living longer, and fewer active teachers are paying into the system.
“We’ve seen a little bit of a trend over the last few years in particular that that number has just come down a little bit. There’s been a lot of retirements, a lot of baby-boomer retirements, especially in 2013 and 2015 were two especially big years for the system,” he said.
STRS takes in $ 3 billion a year from 170,000 working teachers. The system pays out $7 billion in benefits to retirees. The other $4 billion is earned through investments.
