As many consider the buyout option the district is offering – consider this…public education here in Ohio is on the decline – read this article in the New Yorker as evidence, this national magazines uses OHIO as the template for the defunding of public ed – you can also find many other post throughout this website in a similar vein preparing you for the changes on the horizon – the long game of those against public education is coming home to roost. Also, we are possibly 2 failed levies from being threatened with state receivership…for your consideration – at that time ALL OUR LOCAL CONTROL GOES AWAY AND THE STATE TAKES OVER…the state then supersedes our contract…any protections we have are gone.
In many ways this is a great opportunity for our members – one member that was ready to retire called this “hitting the lottery”…some of our members could be walking away with over $100,000. More than one member is considering other job opportunities and using this as a way to subsidies a new salary. You are walking away from FREE MONEY.
On thing we are hearing are concerns about health care…we are working at bringing in a consultant to talk about this with those that think this is a limiter. Off the top of our heads, some other things to consider…1. if you can retire and are within 5 years of getting Medicare, $100 grand buys a lot of insurance…2. presumably you will have those health concerns into the future, but once this BO goes away, there goes your $$ to pay for it/offset those costs…3 the sign up for the ACA is at an ALL TIME HIGH…4. if you do retire STRS offers more affordable HC options until you hit Medicare…5. life is short, you never know…
reach out to any of us on the exec team if you have questions, thoughts, insight to share.