By Darwyyn Deyo | PA Independent

HARRISBURG — The Commonwealth Foundation says more than $61.5 million in “taxpayer funding” went to teacher organizations and associations in 2009-2010.

The organization filed a Right-to-Know request that included payments to the organizations and associations in the form of dues, insurance and add-on services, such as professional development. A Right-to-Know request is a process for obtaining public records under the state’s Sunshine Act.

The Commonwealth Foundation published its findings on Tuesday.

Wythe Keever, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said the report was “disingenuous” and “misleading.”

“What the Commonwealth Foundation refers to as school district payments to PSEA is in fact dues dollars collected through the district through payroll,” said Keever. “It’s not the school district’s money; it’s the employees’ money. They’re voluntary contributions deducted through paychecks and transferred to PSEA.”

Nathan Benefield, director of research for the Commonwealth Foundation, a nonprofit Harrisburg-based public policy institute that advocates fiscal conservatism in state government, said those payments are not voluntary at all, adding that “school districts should get out of the business of being a collection agency for the PSEA.”

“The union dues and ‘fair share’ fees deductions are voluntary only in the sense that teachers can neither refuse to pay them (in most cases), nor can they refuse to have them deducted from paychecks,” said Benefield. “That is a requirement of the union contracts.”

Keever said because it’s the employees’ money, “they have the right to contribute to the union as they choose,” though by state law individuals who opt-out of a public union still must pay partial dues to compensate for benefits they receive through collective bargaining.

Julie Raab, a non-union teacher at the Central Dauphin School District, said she would rather not pay the “fair share” deduction taken from her paycheck, which amounts to $480 this year. She said becoming a PSEA member became mandatory after the last round of contract negotiations in 2007, though teachers can still opt out of the full union and pay the lower “fair share” dues.

Full union dues at the Central Dauphin School District are $550 annually.

“I’m a forced union member,” said Raab. “I wish I didn’t have to be. All of a sudden (mandatory union membership) was put in the contract, that we had to join the union or be fired. It seemed like extortion to me — to keep my job I had to pay money to a private organization. I have nothing against the union per se, but I don’t think I should have to support it if I don’t choose to.”

All Pennsylvania school districts are unionized, but about 25 percent of the districts do not require union membership and payment of union dues for school teachers.

According to the 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for Pennsylvania, the state’s pension plan for teachers — Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) distributed $4.962 billion in pension benefits in 2009, and $283.2 million in health care benefits. In addition to public school teachers, PSERS also pays benefits to members of the Pennsylvania School Board Administrators (PSBA), which also is listed in the Commonwealth Foundation report.

In a statement responding to the Commonwealth Foundation report, PSBA argued the whole story was not being told.

“What the Commonwealth Foundation news release fails to mention is that most of that is for insurance paid by the districts — insurance they need to protect their staff, students and facilities regardless of whether or not they purchase these services from PSBA or another insurance provider,” PSBA  said in the statement. “Much of the money cited in the report for PSBA is used to protect the public investment made in local schools.”

The Commonwealth Foundation reports $10.6 million was sent to the PSBA in 2009-2010. While the money was not used primarily for lobbying efforts, it did go to policy maintenance and review, administrator searches, professional development for board members and administrators, legal services and publications.

Benefield said the Commonwealth Foundation would support enacting a right-to-work law in Pennsylvania to end the money flow, though, he said, other measures could come first.

“A simple first step would be for school districts (and state government) to stop serving as the collection agent for union dues and end the process of automatic dues deduction,” said Benefield. “This can be done in contract negotiations, but we expect to see legislation introduced in the near future that would prohibit this practice for all government bodies. 

He also argued that school boards should refuse membership in organizations like the PSBA, which he said are “engaged in lobbying against the interest of taxpayers and students.”

 

Linda Gross, an adjunct teacher at the Community College of Philadelphia, had a similar experience with her union membership with the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers’ union affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Gross said she first started looking into what the AFT was using her union dues for when she began receiving political mail supporting Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

“I suddenly, two years ago, started getting bombarded by the union with campaign literature for Obama and for every Democrat around,” said Gross. “I never recalled having been so inundated with that type of information from the union. I looked into this and what I found out was that if I wanted to resign I could resign, except they told me I couldn’t resign until the end of (my) contract.”

By working through Stop Teacher Strikes, a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization aimed at stopping public school teacher strikes, Gross said she when she requested arbitration on her move to leave the union, the AFT let her stop her membership. She no longer pays any dues, union or otherwise, she said.

“I doubt that there is anybody else in the college with my status,” said Gross, who said the process to get out of the union was “not at all” transparent. “I had to get all the legal documents I could get my hands on from the college about the union. It wasn’t all clear; it wasn’t at all up front.”

Gross and Raab both said that in return for the “fair share” dues they paid, they received no benefits or training apart from the advertised collective bargaining for salaries and benefits.

The AFT declined to comment. According to the Commonwealth Foundation report, the AFT received more than $1.3 million in payments and dues in 2009-2010.

“That’s all offered through the school district, nothing from the union,” said Raab. “Unless you’re a union member, then I’m sure those things are available, but not as a fair share” and said “there is no recourse to let them know you don’t agree with them because they get your money no matter what.”

While the Commonwealth Foundation said it is waiting for a remaining 120 out of 500 school districts to report their funding, they show the PSEA received $47.36 million in various contributions from teachers. 

Jim Buckheit, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, said the funds identified in the Right-to-Know request primarily go toward professional development and training, required every five years for Pennsylvania superintendents to keep their certification.

“Some of it is actual membership,” Buckeit said. “The amount they’re identifying exceeds our revenue from memberships so it has to include other payments made by school districts.”

In the case of PASA, Buckheit said, the payments made to the organization from school districts are included in a superintendent’s employment agreement as a benefit of employment. A superintendent’s membership cost is .0075 percent of their salary

“Joe Smith from Wonderful School District would want to be a member and it would include that provision in their employment agreement,” said Buckheit. “The school district would pay their membership on behalf of that individual.”

The PASA received $527,095 from the school districts in the report. 

State Rep. James Roebuck, D-Philadelphia, minority chair of the House Education Committee, said he supported unions’ collection of employees dues because they benefited from collective bargaining.

“The reality is if you are benefiting from what someone else does, I don’t think it’s inappropriate to ask you contribute to the overall cost of what you get,” he said, though he said in the case of PASA, it might make more sense for individuals, not school districts, to pay membership fees.

“I think we have far more compelling issues to focus on,” said Roebuck. “I have not received any indication from my constituents .. .this is an issue of primary concern. What I have received is a lot of correspondence concerned about the deep cuts by Gov. Corbett in education funding but nothing about the issue (here).”

State Rep. Paul Clymer, R-Bucks, majority chair of the House Education Committee, agreed there were other priorities on the table at the moment but said if any discussion of the issue were to happen, it would be most likely in the summer after the budget has been passed.

“It’s certainly an issue that has been talked about in the press and within the legislative body,” said Clymer. “It’d be very difficult. Unless it’s some kind of emergency, that may be held over for a summer hearing when we have time…to bring in people who would be for and against the issue; if it benefits or not benefits the public at large.” 

State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, however, said this money flow was a situation that needs to be corrected.

“You have all these administrators and they have much higher salaries than the teachers themselves,” said Metcalfe. “You’re tapping all this money just to create bureaucracy under bureaucracy to drain the funds that should be used in the classroom or kept in the pockets of the taxpayer.”