Full-time teachers are paid six-figure salaries to work for their union while keeping their school district seniority and pensions afloat. The dual work arrangements are built into union contracts.

“This has been going on for years, and it’s hard to know how widespread it is,” said Larry Sand, who has spotlighted the arrangements at unionwatch.org and heads the nonprofit California Teachers Empowerment Network. “It varies district by district and each contract has to be looked into. … A lot of the time, school board members don’t even know, or they are pressured by the unions to keep a policy in place.”

Built into the contract

As included in the teaching contract at the San Diego Unified School District, “when negotiations with the District are scheduled during working hours, association representatives will be released from work without loss of pay.”

The contract in the Bakersfield City School District provides a full-time leave of absence for the teachers union president to tend to association business: “The president shall be paid in the usual manner as if he/she were a regular employee of the District and shall suffer no reduction in salary.”

And in the Fountain Valley School District in Orange County, the union president can devote one day per week to union business, costing taxpayers up to $22,230 per year, according to unionwatch.org.

A union official who has received dual salaries said the arrangements are helpful.

“There is a lot of mutual benefit there,” said Michela Cichoki. “Some are teaching partners, and so there is a period of release for officers. And a lot of the time they are in meetings with the district, and they are teacher representatives on those committees, representing the teachers.”

In 2012, Cichoki received a pay package worth $242,754 for service as secretary-treasurer of the California Teachers Association. The same year, Cichoki was paid a package worth $118,818 from the San Bernardino City Unified School District for her work as a “hearing panel member.”

Cichoki’s case illustrates the complicated formula of reimbursement at the upper levels of the union/school district entanglement.

The union reimbursed the district for her package, although she was allowed to maintain her pension while gone by paying her share from her pocket.

“I was released from the school district while I was at CTA,” Cichoki said. “It’s in the [education] code that we can be released for union work, and the district can ask for reimbursement, and that comes from the union so that no taxpayer funds are paying for it.”

Dean Vogel, past president of the California Teachers Association, received a pay package worth $277,356 in 2012, the last year records are available. In 2013, while serving as president of the state’s teacher union, public records show he received $97,542 for working on “special assignment” in the Vacaville Unified School District.

The union may have reimbursed the district for Vogel’s pay package, as in the case of Cichoki. A spokeswoman for the CTA did not return calls.

Union work should be kept separate

Sand blames the local school board members for allowing teachers who should be in the classroom to instead conduct union work on taxpayer time.

“The school boards should be serving the public instead of serving the union,” Sand said.

The dual salary arrangements have drawn legal complaints in other states, similar to the noise being made by the teachers who contend they shouldn’t have to pay union dues that go to efforts they don’t support.

Some teachers also believe their union-connected colleagues shouldn’t be allowed to spend time outside the classroom when their job is to teach.

A lawsuit in Pennsylvania challenges the arrangement in the Philadelphia School District, where up to 63 teachers are allowed to gain seniority, accrue pension benefits and receive insurance, just as they would as teachers, while engaging in union activities.

Steve Miller can be reached at 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com. His website is www.Avalanche50.com

It was reportedly the first raise in eight years for the rank and file, and the negotiations were handled by United Teachers Los Angeles.

According to an L.A. Times story on the payout:

The tentative three-year deal would cost $875.3 million for all employees, about $285.6 million more than the district’s original offer, according to a memo from Supt. Ramon C. Cortines to board members. Included in the increased amount is an additional $31.6 million for other employee groups, such as administrators, whose contracts entitle them to more money if other bargaining units negotiate better deals than their own.

Teachers unions in Los Angeles and around the state have battled for raises over the past year.

In San Diego, teachers seek a 10 percent wage increase over two years. In San Francisco, teachers obtained a 12 percent raise over three years. And teachers in a San Jose high school district got a 5 percent raise earlier this year.

Many of these teachers are members of either the California Federation of Teachers, the state affiliate of the national American Federation of Teachers; or the California Teachers Association, a chapter of the National Education Association. Together, the two represent 445,000 members.

The CFT files an annual financial disclosure with the U.S. Department of Labor. An analysis of the CFT’s annual labor department filings shows that yearly dues have increased 33 percent since 2005 – about the last time the L.A. teachers got a raise – from $361 annually to $482 last year. Dues have not increased since 2011.

Meanwhile, membership has increased from 51,712 active members in 2005 to 55,647 last year.

Among other findings in the analysis, which was done by accessing reports through this Department of Labor portal:

• The salary of the secretary/treasurer has increased 40 percent, from the $116,786 received by Michael Nye in 2005 to the $163,812 paid to Jeffrey Freitas last year.
• Pay to the president of CFT dropped from the $121,170 paid to Mary Bergan in 2005 to the $84,274 paid to Joshua Pechthalt last year.
• The federation added a salary to the upper ranks: $80,000 to Jim Mahler, head of the Community College Council.
• Overall, total officer disbursements rose 60 percent between 2005 and 2014, from $333,126 to $536,604.
• Employee disbursements, including political organizing, went from $3.6 million in 2005 to $4.9 million in 2014, an increase of 36 percent.
• Loans payable at the end of 2014 were zero compared to $3.2 million in outstanding loans in 2005.
• In 2005, the federation paid $62,000 to Sacramento PR ace Stephen Hopcraft. While Hopcraft’s website says he is still working for the federation, no payments to him were reported for last year. Instead, it reported spending $113,000 with Senders Communication Group in Canoga Park.
• For in-house lobbying at the statehouse, the CFT paid $248,781 in 2013-14. In 2005-06, it paid $329,260.
• The federation now has an unfunded pension liability of $5.1 million compared to zero in 2005. Total liabilities are now $30.1 million compared to $6 million in 2005. The growth has been driven by new accounting rules that require broader reporting of liabilities coupled with a steady creep in unfunded pension benefits.

The data shows a strong performance for the union in a state that has maintained its organized labor base while the rest of the country has seen an explosion of successful right-to-work legislation – Michigan and Wisconsin notably – and an increase in non-union workplaces.

Union membership in the U.S. has dropped from 24 percent of workers in 1973 to 11.1 percent in 2014, according to unionstats.com.

Membership in the public sector, though, has remained in the 30-something-percent range since the late ‘70s, settling at 35.7 percent last year.

In California, membership has remained above the national average since 2004, with 17.5 percent of workers represented by a union last year compared with 18 percent in 2004. The state ranked fifth in the U.S. for overall representation behind Hawaii, New York, Alaska and Washington.

Steve Miller can be reached at 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com. His website is www.Avalanche50.com

Photo of school bus by flickr user Kevin42135, used via a Creative Commons license

By Steven Greenhut

SACRAMENTO — For advocates of less-intrusive government, finding the good news in the recent election is like looking on the bright side after your house has been wiped out by a hurricane: You never did like that floor plan, anyway, and this seems like a great opportunity to rethink your lifestyle.

The political storm was particularly fearsome in California. Democrats already are floating trial balloons now that they have gained a legislative supermajority that allows them to pass direct tax increases without GOP support.

But there was some good news, however slim, on the ballot in the long-neglected area of criminal-justice reform. California voters passed, 69 percent to 31 percent, Proposition 36, to reform the state’s notoriously tough “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” sentencing law.

In 1994, California voters passed Prop. 184, which targeted repeat offenders. Under that law, if a person convicted of two serious or violent felonies commits a third “strike,” it would automatically lead to a life term with no possibility of parole for 25 years. It’s debatable how much “three strikes” contributed to falling crime rates, but there is little question that California’s strict version led to rising incarceration costs and high-profile instances of injustice.

Unlike any of the other 23 states that passed three-strikes laws, California imposed the life sentence on offenders whose third conviction was for “any” felony, rather than for a serious or violent one. So we’ve witnessed cases where offenders have received that life term for robbing someone of a piece of pizza, kiting a bad check and other relatively minor crimes.

Costs

The costs of implementing the law are enormous, especially in a state where the union-controlled, crowded and arguably inhumane prison system costs the taxpaying public $47,000 a year to incarcerate each inmate. Studies put the estimated annual savings of Prop. 36’s passage at $70 million to $200 million, which is significant even in spendthrift California.

Under Prop. 36, a criminal receives a life term only if the third strike is violent or serious or if the offender is previously convicted of child molestation, murder or rape. In other cases, if the third strike is not violent or serious, the offender receives a doubled sentence.

The good news is the reform effort sparked little controversy. A number of prominent conservatives spoke out in favor of Prop. 36, including Grover Norquist, the nationally prominent sponsor of the “no new taxes” pledge. He was quoted in the ballot argument: “The Three Strikes Reform Act is tough on crime without being tough on taxpayers. It will put a stop to needlessly wasting hundreds of millions in taxpayers’ hard-earned money, while protecting people from violent crime.”

Norquist also is a member of a group called Right on Crime, which officially endorsed Prop. 36. Its membership — i.e., Ronald Reagan’s attorney general Ed Meese, potential Republican presidential contenders Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich — isn’t flush with people who send contributions to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Right on Crime argues: “Conservatives are known for being tough on crime, but we must also be tough on criminal justice spending. That means demanding more cost-effective approaches that enhance public safety. A clear example is our reliance on prisons, which serve a critical role by incapacitating dangerous offenders and career criminals but are not the solution for every type of offender. And in some instances, they have the unintended consequence of hardening nonviolent, low-risk offenders — making them a greater risk to the public than when they entered.”

Discussion

It’s significant that conservatives would jump-start this discussion, which is needed now that Republicans are regrouping and trying to put together a bundle of government-reform issues that might appeal to the nation’s voters.

Despite the general impression that California is a left-wing hothouse, it has long been a law-and-order state where both parties have played cynically on the public’s oftentimes legitimate fears about crime. There’s been little willingness here to do more than build more prisons and throw more money at a system dominated by the prison guards union, which has lobbied against reforms to protect its “business.”

When I came to California in 1998, it was toward the end of the gubernatorial race that pitted Republican Attorney General Dan Lungren against Democratic Lt. Gov. Gray Davis. Both men were engaging in a “tough on crime” arms race that reached the most absurd levels when, as the New York Times reported, Davis “said in a televised debate, on issues of law and order, he considered Singapore — a country that executes drug offenders — ‘a good starting point.'”

Davis won that race, then was recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, despite his long list of failures, did try, unsuccessfully, to take on the guards and buck the orthodoxy of conservatives who found law-and-order their only winning issue outside of holding the line on taxes. Both parties were appealing to voters who, according to a recent San Jose Mercury News analysis, voted only five times since 1912 “to curb the power of the state’s criminal justice system.”

The GOP today has a great opportunity to focus on justice and cost savings given that the California Democratic Party has let its union domination trump any concern about civil liberties, and it has never cared about protecting the public from excessive taxation. Since Davis, the Democrats have refused to be outflanked on the right on public-safety issues. They have a simple approach to criminal justice matters: Give the police unions and prison guards’ unions anything they want.

Perhaps the opportunity simply is born of receding public fear as crime levels drop to historic lows. Whatever the case, with the passage of Prop. 36 and the emergence of Right on Crime, there’s a clear blueprint for Republicans who want to put into practice their oft-stated promises about reforming and limiting government.

Steven Greenhut is vice president of journalism at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Write to him at: steven.greenhut@franklincenterhq.org.

By Brian Calle

Californians know a thing or two about recalls.

Only two state governors in U.S. history have been removed from office via recall; the first was North Dakota Gov. Lynn J. Frazier in 1921. Of course, the second was California’s Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003.

Public-sector unions in Wisconsin — with their national counterparts cheering them on — hope Tuesday to make Gov. Scott Walker the third governor recalled from office because he dared to challenge union power and influence in state governance.

But compare Walker with California Gov. Jerry Brown — and contrast Wisconsin’s progress since Walker enacted his union-bucking policies with California’s continued decline under Brown’s union-friendly leadership, and you see two different outcomes.

Walker and Brown, who both took office on the same day, Jan. 3, 2011, faced tremendous budget deficits and squawking public employee unions demanding higher taxes. Brown obliged; Walker would not.

Faced with a $3.6 billion deficit, Walker lowered taxes — freezing property taxes and bringing down school property taxes. He also painted a realistic and honest budget picture for his constituents and pushed for painful but necessary reforms that cut collective bargaining rights for government unions and created more competition, like allowing private vendors to bid on health insurance contracts for school districts, which reduced costs.

Seventeen months later, Wisconsin is projected to have a $154 million surplus by the summer of 2013. And, the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute reported that Walker’s reforms have saved taxpayers $1 billion.

In California, Gov. Brown, returning to the post he left in 1983, sided with unions from day one. Early on, he appointed a California Teachers Association lobbyist, Patricia Rucker, to the state Board of Education. He also presented Californians with an unrealistic budget that projected far more state revenue than what eventually came in.

Partially as a result of such budgeting gimmickry, the state’s projected $9 billion budget shortfall has ballooned to $17 billion.

Brown’s plan to close the gap is to convince voters in November to inflict higher taxes on themselves, an approach blessed by unions. Should his tax increases pass, they would raise only about $8.5 billion, a far cry from the $17 billion needed to close the budget hole. And that means California will continue on the path of dysfunctional budgeting and sidestepping meaningful reform.

Unlike Walker, Brown has yet to challenge the stranglehold that public employee unions have in the state — if anything, he has emboldened them. That is one of the reasons he prefers seeking new taxes to making deeper spending cuts or expending political capital on reforming unsustainable public-employee pensions.

Also, unions had been a pillar of Brown’s political career for decades. They helped get him elected again to the governorship in 2010. Early in his first administration, Brown signed the Rodda Act in 1975, which bestowed collective bargaining rights on California public school teachers.

Walker in many ways is the antithesis of Brown.

As Douglas Belkin and Kris Maher wrote for the Wall Street Journal: “Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership – by more than half for the second-biggest union — since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.” Specifically, Walker stopped the practice of automatically withholding union dues from the paychecks of employees — the main source of funds for union political operations.

“Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers — fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011,” Belkin and Maher reported.

Examining Brown and Walker’s records, one might argue the recall efforts ought to focus on the former, rather than the latter, as the California governor continues to preside and perhaps enable the Golden State’s fiscal calamity.

Walker’s day of reckoning comes Tuesday, and, fortunately, the latest-available polling data, including a poll from Marquette University, indicated he would prevail, with about 52 percent support.

Brown’s day of reckoning will come in November, when votes are cast on his tax increase ballot measure.

What happens in Wisconsin in a couple days will have significant repercussions for those hoping, eventually, for similar reforms in the Golden State. If Walker keeps his job, other governors, like Brown, well could find themselves with more leverage with their unions. If Walker is recalled, unions nationwide will be emboldened.

California’s out-of-control government unions just can’t help themselves. The La Habra Education Association struck last week, but is going back on the job as Christmas Vacation approaches. Might as well get paid for not working.

The school district is calling for 2% pay cuts. Given the imminent cuts in the state budget, which will hit schools hard, that’s reasonable. It’s more than reasonable. Compare that to the 100% pay cuts millions of Californian taxpayers have suffered as they have been laid off or fired during the Depression.

Thousands of teachers have been laid off across the state. So there’s no shortage of substitute teachers to fill in for the strikers. Unions call strike-breakers “scabs.” But if your family is starving, any job looks good.

And union members themselves should bear much of the blame. Their unions backed the record wild government spending at the national and state levels that is a major (but not the only) cause of this Depression. (Other national causes: Bankrupting wars that have lasted almost a decade; inflation and artificially low interest rates by the Federal Reserve Board; unpredictable tax policies; over-regulation; general anti-business attitude under Democrats and Republicans.)

The teachers in La Habra seem to think this is 2006, when property values were skyrocketing, state revenues were pouring in record amounts, Arnold had “terminated” every single state trouble and Nirvana had arrived so why not overspend? It was a delusion, of course, as unreal as the plot of one of his ridiculous movies.

Now things are different. Treasuries are empty. Taxpayers are broke. Tens of millions stand in unemployment lines. All government workers are going to have to take even heftier cuts in pay, perks and pensions — or lose their jobs.

Welcome to the real world, Neo.

Dec. 15, 2010