Perhaps the most ridiculous waste of taxpayer dollars is facing a legal challenge in one California school district that is suing its teachers union to get its money back.
The Vista Unified School District is suing the Vista Teachers Association, the California Teachers Association, and the National Education Association over the wages of its local union president, which is released from teaching responsibilities to work on union business as part of the district’s collective bargaining agreement, the North County Times reports.
In school districts across the nation, local teachers union presidents are “released” from their teaching duties either full or part time to conduct union business. Some contracts also allow for “release time” for rank-and-file teachers to work for the union, or to lobby lawmakers.
The ridiculous practice often costs schools $100,000 or more per year to cover the president’s salary and benefits – in addition to the cost of a substitute teacher – to essentially provide the nation’s multimillion dollar teachers unions with free labor.
In some districts, such as Vista Unified, the union repays a portion of the expense. In many others, it doesn’t.
A lawyer for Vista Unified advised school officials that the arrangement was illegal, and those officials asked the union to repay $128,242 the district has spent on the contract provision over the past three years, the North County Times reports.
The union filed a grievance, and the school board denied it. The school district filed a lawsuit.
School board President Steve Lilly said that school trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to pursue the matter. We agree.
“It is unconscionable and otherwise unjust for defendants to enrich themselves at the expense of the plaintiff,” the lawsuit states, according to North County Times.
That is a nice way of saying that the NEA is shafting Vista Unified schools and many, many others across the country by injecting expensive, potentially illegal language into teachers contracts at the expense of hard-working taxpayers. It’s a rip off, in other words, on those who fund the schools and union.
We certainly hope that Vista Unified prevails in the courtroom and is repaid for the expense for the last three years, compensation that is covered by the statute of limitations. Even better if the judge awards the district repayment for the entire 15 years this stupid practice has gone on at Vista Unified, which would translate to a $475,000 windfall for the district, according to North County Times.
We also encourage other school districts to publicly highlight similar contract provisions in their local agreements, as well as this California court case, and let local taxpayers decide if they believe it is a wise use of precious school funds.
We would venture to guess that would quickly put an end to this union racket.