PURPOSE (from the Bylaws of the ORTA, Inc.)
The primary purpose of the Association shall be to instruct and train individuals to improve and develop their capabilities to meet the social and economic changes and problems subsequent to their retirement; to sponsor and support legislation intended to contribute to their well-being, locally, state-wide and nationally, and to cooperate with the Retired Teacher Division of the AARP and other organizations having similar purposes and aims.

What Is ORTA?  (A short history lesson)
In 1920, when the Ohio General Assembly created the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (STRS), they had the foresight to guarantee that once established, the retirement benefit could not be reduced for the life of the recipient. There was no way that, in 1920, they could have anticipated what was going to happen to our nation's economy in the ensuing years, so they made no provisions for increasing the retirement benefit as conditions changed.

Teachers who retired in the 1920s were very pleased with their retirement benefits, in spite of the fact they were in the $55 to $65 per month range. First of all, they had paid very little into the system and whatever they received was much more than their predecessors had received. During the decade of the 1930s, retired teachers receiving a retirement benefit from STRS were certainly much better off than the large numbers of unemployed among them. Then, in the decade of the 1940s, retired teachers began to hear unfamiliar words such as "inflation" and "consumer price index." Suddenly, their small retirement benefits became even smaller as their buying power diminished.

Individual retired teachers began to approach legislators asking for help to increase retirement benefits to keep pace with inflation, with no success. Active teachers were organized and were successful in obtaining modest salary increases which in turn, increased their retirement benefits. Retired teachers soon learned they too had to get organized and provide a united front to negotiate with legislators and even the retirement system.

In 1947, several separate groups of retired teachers joined forces and formed the Ohio Retired Teachers Association (ORTA) with the goal of representing the interests of retired teachers at the General Assembly and STRS. About the same time, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus organized the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) and Ohio joined California, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to become the first affiliates of NRTA.

Today, there are ninety chapters of ORTA, one in each county and two in Cuyahoga and Stark Counties. ORTA policy is determined by an elected board made up of thirty-two retired educators from the ranks of classroom teachers, college and university professors, administrators - every facet of public education. Eleven are District Directors elected by the chapters in their respective districts. Seventeen are Trustees elected by each of the seventeen largest chapters and five officers of the board are elected by the other twenty-seven board members. The ORTA Office Staff consists of an Executive Director, a  Secretary-Treasurer, a Membership Secretary who are all full-time employees as well as a Director of Publications who is part time.

MEMBERSHIP
We offer Regular Membership to anyone receiving a benefit check from the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio and Associate Membership to anyone else who might be interested in joining our organization. Regular Memberships and Associate Memberships enjoy all the same membership privileges except that only Regular Members may hold office in the organization.
Why not join us and help us fulfill Our Mission: To dedicate ourselves to preserving and improving teacher retirement benefits and pensions?