Oklahoma Retired Educators Association (OREA)

The Oklahoma Retired Educators Association promotes pension systems using the more costly defined-benefit system over the defined-contribution 401(k)-type system. ³

Advocacy

Income Taxes

In October 2023, Sabra Tucker, executive director of OREA, spoke at the Pontotoc County Retired Educators Association event. ⁴ Tucker opposed state cutting personal income taxes ⁴ and told the crowd that Oklahoma was in the bottom 10 states for overall taxes and warned  that if personal income taxes are cut, property taxes would likely increase very significantly as they allegedly did in other states that cut personal income taxes. ⁴

ESG

The Oklahoma State Legislature passed House Bill 2034 in 2022 that stops state government retirement systems from investing in companies that “boycott energy companies.” ⁵ The Energy Discrimination Elimination Act of 2022 is referred to as Oklahoma’s anti-ESG (environmental, social and governance) law. ⁵

Don Keenan, a retired state employee and former president of the Oklahoma Public Employees Association, filed a lawsuit in November 2023 to block the enforcement of the law. ⁶ The Oklahoma Retired Educators Association supported Keenan’s lawsuit. ⁶

Oklahoma County District Court Judge Sheila Stinson issued a temporary injunction stopping enforcement of the law in May 2024. ⁷

Pension Cost-Of-Living Adjustment

In 2019, Tucker attended a rally at the state Capitol and spoke in favor of House Bill 2304, ⁸ which would have provided a four percent cost-of-living adjustment for all six of the state’s retirement funds. ⁸ The bill did not pass. ⁹

The Tulsa World reported in 2021 that Sarah Green, executive director of Oklahoma’s “long-beleaguered” teacher retirement system that regular cost-of-living increases as low as one percent would completely change the funding’s trajectory and derail progress on fully funding the system. ¹⁰

The Teachers’ Retirement System of Oklahoma’s Unfunded Actuarial Accrued Liability was $7.7 billion as of June 2021, ¹¹ and was considered 71.5 percent funded. ¹¹

In a November 17, 2021 post for the National Public Pension Coalition, Tucker claimed the Tulsa World reporter “missed some critical points.” ¹² Tucker cited a study which said that Oklahoma’s pension funds were on “solid financial footing” and were “far better than defined-contribution 401(k)-style plans.” ¹²

Teacher Shortage

According to the National Education Association teachers’ union, the state of Oklahoma had 41,294 teachers and 649,013 students in 2016 to 2017. ¹³ There were 16.80 students enrolled per teacher that year. ¹³ In 2022 to 2023, there were 42,763 teachers and 651,940 students with 16.40 students enrolled per teacher. ¹⁴

In 2021, Tucker was quoted in a Tulsa World story that said the state’s worsening teacher shortage was unsustainable and additional compensation would be part of strategy to prevent more teachers from leaving. ¹⁵

Membership

The Oklahoma Retired Educators Association was formed in 1952 and stated in 2002 that there were 36,000 retirees in the state but only 13,000 active members in OREA. ¹⁶ OREA is divided into 10 districts. OREA claimed almost 15,000 members in 2023. ¹⁷

Financials

Oklahoma Retired Educators Association reported $553,719 in total revenue in 2022 and $488,357 in total expenses. It had total net assets of $1,182,841. ¹⁸ OREA collected $462,489 in membership dues and $20,858 in program services in 2022. ¹⁹