Most retired teachers in Ohio were promised a pension with a regular Cost of Living Adjustment — an inflation adjustment — but, they do not have one. Regular COLAs were eliminated in 2017. Since then, the average purchasing power of an STRS retiree has declined 32 percent. This is why STRS needs an increase in the employer contribution.

A pension is normally set up so that the combined participant and employer contributions plus investment earnings prefund the benefits that participants receive after retirement. Then, a pension’s assets (resources used to pay benefits) equal its liabilities (what the pension owes to current and future retirees). However, when liabilities exceed assets, there is a shortfall: an unfunded liability. Pensions are then required to set up a “payment plan” to pa

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