CLT
UPDATE
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
National teachers union investigated
by IRS:
Is MTA and MTF next?
The IRS has begun auditing the National Education Association, which has allocated millions of dollars to elect pro-education candidates while reporting on tax forms that it does not spend union dues on politics....
The NEA has tax-exempt status as a union, but must report "direct and indirect" political expenses on its tax return. Some of those expenses could be considered taxable by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS defines a political expense as "one intended to influence the selection, nomination, election, or appointment of anyone to a federal, state, or local public office."...
The documents were gathered by Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm that has filed complaints with the IRS seeking an audit and, more recently, a criminal investigation of whether the NEA evaded taxes.
Landmark received the documents as part of a lawsuit it filed that forced the IRS to disclose records identifying members of Congress who had asked the tax agency to audit political opponents.
Associated Press
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
IRS probes union's political expenditures
Weaver’s public admission is an unusual step. EIA reported last January that the California Teachers Association, NEA’s largest state affiliate, was undergoing an IRS audit, but the union never issued a statement. No NEA affiliate has ever publicized an ongoing or impending audit.
The Education Intelligence Agency
Communiqué – November 24, 2003
Flush with cash from its newly imposed $5 national dues increase, the National Education Association began spreading the wealth around at the most recent meeting of its board of directors....
$350,000 to the Massachusetts Teachers Association to defeat two measures, Question 4 and Question 6. The first is designed to return state income tax rates to 5 percent from the current 5.95 percent, instituted as a "temporary" increase in 1990. The second measure would reduce motor vehicle taxes.
The Education Intelligence Agency
Communiqué – October 2, 2000
NEA Spends Dues Increase to Influence Tax Rates
The business-funded Taxpayers Foundation found state officials have failed to give schools the tools to reduce their overhead, and said funding gaps - up in flush years and down in lean ones - has put off much-needed capital improvements....
"This is a huge change in term of where we're putting our dollars," said Widmer. "We give public lip service to (the importance of having) an educated workforce. Our budgets haven't reflected that."
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Stir crazy: Bay State spends more on prisons than higher ed
Some teachers and support staff in at least seven school districts south of Boston collected unemployment benefits last summer on top of their annual salaries.
The teachers received layoff notices at the end of the 2002-2003 school year, applied for unemployment when classes ended, and were rehired by September. They never lost a day of work....
Catherine A. Boudreau, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said she did not understand why some town officials are upset by the practice.
The Boston Globe - South
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Officials hit jobless pay in summer for teachers
Layoff notices in spring often rescinded by the fall
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Finally, illegal campaign spending is charged against
the National Education Association, and there's enough evidence
for the Internal Revenue Service to investigate.
The NEA reported "on tax forms that it does not spend union dues on
politics" -- but we here in Massachusetts and in other states know
differently, for a fact.
According to reports filed with the state Office of
Campaign and Political Finance, the NEA contributed $350,000 on October
18, 2000 to the "Campaign for Massachusetts' Future," the
Gimme Lobby's "No on Question 4" ballot committee that led the
opposition against our successful income tax rollback ballot question.
During that same two-week reporting period, the
Massachusetts Teachers Association contributed an additional $425,000 on
October 16 and $75,000 more on October 19.
That's $850,000 from the national and state teachers
unions within a mere three days.
"The Associated Press reviewed the NEA's filings from the years 1993 through 1999, reporting in a series of stories that the NEA has said on its tax returns that no union dues were spent on politics, despite extensive internal memos laying out numerous union-funded political activities."
Did the NEA also deny spending union dues on politics
in 2000, or did the national teachers union report those millions it spent
to the IRS as required by law?
But fear not teachers unions, you've recruited a new
ally, the once "highly-respected," so-called Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation, notorious for providing political cover for tax
hikes.
"We give public lip service to (the importance of having) an educated
workforce," whined MTF president Michael Widmer. "Our budgets haven't reflected that."
For some reason, MTF has decided to compare the cost
of incarcerating criminals with how much the state spends on higher
education. Its latest "report" made no mention of how much more
the state has pumped into K-12 education -- billions upon billions of
tax dollars over that same period. Go figure.
Meanwhile, the state teachers union is again defending
the indefensible,
"laid-off" teachers' double-dipping: collecting their teaching
salaries all summer while school's out and also collecting unemployment compensation --
even when they're rehired in the fall and never miss a beat of
employment.
"Catherine A. Boudreau, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said she did not understand why some town officials are upset by the practice."
Don't bring up "fiscal crisis" ...
unless, of course, the topic is another tax hike and they'll be
screaming bloody murder from the rooftops.
I won't be surprised to see Catherine Boudreau soon listed on the so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation's fat-cat board of
directors.
Of course both the MTA and the MTF have something
else in common. I've documented how the MTA, the state teachers union,
contributed immense amounts of money to the ballot campaign which
opposed our income tax reduction. Let's not forget that Michael Widmer
and the the so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation -- which also
holds IRS tax-exempt status -- led the campaign against Carla Howell's
2002 ballot question to abolish the state income tax.
Will IRS auditors soon be knocking on the MTF's door
too?
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Chip
Ford |
Associated Press
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
IRS probes union's political expenditures
By Larry Margasak
WASHINGTON -- The IRS has begun auditing the National Education Association, which has allocated millions of dollars to elect pro-education candidates while reporting on tax forms that it does not spend union dues on politics.
While promising cooperation, the president of the nation's largest teachers' union is also pledging to "vigorously defend our constitutional right to speak to our members about the role of politics in public education."
NEA spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons said yesterday the audit began last week. "It will be a complete, thorough audit," she said. "The IRS has not singled out any particular aspect of our activities."
Reg Weaver, the union's president, said the "NEA will not be silenced" by the audit or complaints from a conservative foundation that it has wrongly engaged in political activities without disclosing them. Union members "have a right to be involved in politics. Our organization will not back down in the face of those who want to bully us out of our rights as Americans," Weaver said.
The NEA has tax-exempt status as a union, but must report "direct and indirect" political expenses on its tax return. Some of those expenses could be considered taxable by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS defines a political expense as "one intended to influence the selection, nomination, election, or appointment of anyone to a federal, state, or local public office."
The tax agency is prohibited from publicly discussing audits of taxpayers.
The Associated Press reviewed the NEA's filings from the years 1993 through 1999, reporting in a series of stories that the NEA has said on its tax returns that no union dues were spent on politics, despite extensive internal memos laying out numerous union-funded political activities.
Hundreds of pages of internal NEA documents reviewed by AP showed that the 2.7 million-member union had spent millions of dollars to help elect pro-education candidates, produce political training guides, and gather teachers' voting records.
For instance, a July 1999 strategic plan stated that the union had budgeted $4.9 million for the 2000 election for such things as "organizational partnerships with political parties, campaign committees, and political organizations."
Part of the money, the document said, would be spent on "candidate recruitment, independent expenditures, early voting, and vote-by-mail programs, in order to strengthen support for pro-public-education candidates and ballot measures."
The documents were gathered by Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm that has filed complaints with the IRS seeking an audit and, more recently, a criminal investigation of whether the NEA evaded taxes.
Landmark received the documents as part of a lawsuit it filed that forced the IRS to disclose records identifying members of Congress who had asked the tax agency to audit political opponents.
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The Education Intelligence Agency
Communiqué – November 24, 2003
NEA’s Weaver: IRS "Coming In." NEA President Reg Weaver appeared on a Fox News special that aired yesterday and revealed the union is about to undergo an inquiry from the IRS, according to a press statement by the Landmark Legal Foundation, the organization that has filed a number of complaints against NEA about political activities.
"In September the IRS indicated that they were coming in," said Weaver. "When they come in, we feel confident that they will go out the same way they did in 1999 and that is having the NEA have a clean bill of health."
Weaver’s public admission is an unusual step. EIA reported last January that the California Teachers Association, NEA’s largest state affiliate, was undergoing an IRS audit, but the union never issued a statement. No NEA affiliate has ever publicized an ongoing or impending audit.
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- A CLT BLAST FROM
THE PAST -
The Education Intelligence Agency
Communiqué – October 2, 2000
NEA Spends Dues Increase to Influence Tax Rates
Flush with cash from its newly imposed $5 national dues increase, the National Education Association began spreading the wealth around at the most recent meeting of its board of directors. With millions set to go to California and Michigan to fight voucher initiatives, the destination of other money was, shall we say, educational.
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$350,000 to the Massachusetts Teachers Association to defeat two measures, Question 4 and Question 6. The first is designed to return state income tax rates to 5 percent from the current 5.95 percent, instituted as a "temporary" increase in 1990. The second measure would reduce motor vehicle taxes.
In addition, NEA will send $450,000 to the Washington Education Association to support Initiative 732, which would require automatic annual cost-of-living increases to teacher salaries statewide. It also bears noting that the Nevada State Education Association has qualified a petition to institute a four percent business tax in the state. If the 2001 Nevada Legislature fails to pass the measure, NSEA is free to place the proposal before the electorate as an initiative in 2002.
In all the debate at the NEA Representative Assembly over the dues increase, one fact never came up: Ballot initiatives rarely appear in off years.
NEA thus has more than $14 million to spend on this year's
initiatives, if necessary....
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Stir crazy:
Bay State spends more on prisons than higher ed
By Ellen J. Silberman
For the first time in decades, Massachusetts is poised to spend more on convicts than colleges - pumping millions into prisons while cutting back on cash for public higher education classrooms.
A report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation projects that the state will funnel some $816 million to higher education while pumping $830 million to run prisons and jails this fiscal year.
The new statistics sparked immediate debate from City Hall to the State House over whether public colleges are being shortchanged - and whether corrections costs are out of control.
"Education is the hub of all success," said Mayor Thomas M. Menino, a UMass Boston graduate. "If a person doesn't have any education, they have no choice at all."
But state Public Safety Secretary Edward Flynn said the report was too simplistic. "It (the comparison) makes people stop and think, but it's not a zero sum game," he said. "The money we spend on corrections, ultimately, is about safe neighborhoods."
The report calls state support for its 29 university and college campuses "wildly inconsistent for decades," and documents how higher ed funding has been staggered by deep cuts.
While funding for prisons has slowed as well due to the state's fiscal problems, it continues to grow by an average of 1.3 percent each year.
Citing an increased problem with prison overcrowding, the report called for new sentencing guidelines, extended parole eligibility for non-violent offenders and increased community-based corrections programs.
State Sen. Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) blamed soaring prison costs on a decade-long policy of building expensive maximum-security prisons, where the state pays $45,000-a-year to house each inmate. Flynn said those policies were under review.
Barrios, co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Safety, also warned against continuing education cuts, saying, "Divesting in public education, whether it's kindergarten or college, will only come home to roost to us here in Massachusetts with negative consequences."
The business-funded Taxpayers Foundation found state officials have failed to give schools the tools to reduce their overhead, and said funding gaps - up in flush years and down in lean ones - has put off much-needed capital improvements.
Academic departments have been decimated and students and parents have been sent scrambling to cover unexpected tuition and fee increases.
At the same time, the state's "tough on crime" mandatory minimum sentences and prison building spree has ballooned Massachusetts' corrections budget - which has grown from $350 million in
1990 to $830 million in fiscal 2004.
In 1990, the state spent $700 million on its public colleges and universities, said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
"This is a huge change in term of where we're putting our dollars," said Widmer. "We give public lip service to (the importance of having) an educated workforce. Our budgets haven't reflected that."
In the home of Harvard, MIT and Boston University, affordable public higher education is essential with almost half of Massachusetts' college-bound high school graduates enrolling, Widmer said.
Flynn agreed there is room to improve the state's prison system by beefing up pre-release drug treatment and education programs and improving post-release monitoring. "We have to start looking at how we use prisons to prepare (prisoners) for release," he said.
Gov. Mitt Romney has appointed a panel to study the state's correction system.
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The Boston Globe - South
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Officials hit jobless pay in summer for teachers
Layoff notices in spring often rescinded by the fall
By Matt Carroll, Globe Staff
Some teachers and support staff in at least seven school districts south of Boston collected unemployment benefits last summer on top of their annual salaries.
The teachers received layoff notices at the end of the 2002-2003 school year, applied for unemployment when classes ended, and were rehired by September. They never lost a day of work.
Many school, town, and union officials say the practice is legal and ethical, since the teachers did not know they would be rehired before the new school year.
But the practice has angered other town officials, who say teachers are double-dipping by collecting payments from two sources, and should not be allowed to file for unemployment until September, when the new school year begins. They said most communities, which are already under tremendous budget pressure because of state budget cuts, have to fund 100 percent of the unemployment costs.
"It doesn't seem a prudent expense of the taxpayers' money," said Kevin R. Donovan, chairman of Abington's Board of Selectmen. Eight Abington public school employees received $19,267 in unemployment payments over the summer. . All eight were rehired. Donovan said it was unfair that teachers can collect salary due them for the summer months at the same time they receive unemployment benefits. Donovan, who is also the town administrator in Kingston, wants the state Legislature to provide more oversight of unemployment law.
Arthur F. Sullivan, assistant school superintendent in Abington, defended the long-standing practice. The teachers "are not double-dipping," he said. "They're getting 182 days' pay stretched over 52 weeks. As soon as they get a pink slip, and don't have a reasonable assurance of a job, they are eligible for unemployment."
In Foxborough, Superintendent Kathleen I. Tirrell said one teacher laid off at the end of the school year was rehired at the end of the summer only because of an unexpected resignation. The teacher who was rehired "truly did not expect to be employed," said Tirrell.
Teachers and other school support staff in five other communities -- Canton, Dedham, Pembroke, Walpole, and Weymouth -- also collected unemployment and were then rehired. The number of people who received benefits from each community ranged from one to eight.
By contract, a teacher's employment period is from the first day of school to the last, from September until June, but often the pay is spread over the full year. Because of budget uncertainties, many teachers receive layoff notices in the spring, well before school districts have settled their staffing plans for the fall.
That uncertainty can be blamed in part by the state budget process. The state provides aid to local schools, but often the Legislature does not pass a budget until after local school budgets are approved and layoff notices sent. Once schools know how much state aid they will receive, they may reduce the number of layoffs.
A teacher who receives a layoff notice can file for unemployment once the school year ends, said Linnea Walsh, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The maximum unemployment benefit paid is $508 a week. How much an employee collects depends on a number of factors, including salary and dependents. Unemployment benefits stop as soon as the teacher is given notice of a September job offer.
Not all eligible teachers collect. In Norton, six support staff personnel were laid off in June and rehired by September. All were eligible to collect unemployment, but none did, according to a school official.
The issue has been around for decades, cropping up usually during recessions, when teachers are likely to be laid off. In 1975, the state Division of Employment Security ruled that teachers were not eligible for unemployment benefits if they had a contract to work in September, according to news accounts at the time.
In Dedham last summer, six public school employees received a total of $15,800 in unemployment benefits. Town Administrator William G. Keegan Jr. said eligible people should be able to quickly collect unemployment pay. "My personal feeling is that I don't think [laid-off teachers] should be eligible for unemployment until Sept. 1. At that point it is clear they are unemployed."
Catherine A. Boudreau, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said she did not understand why some town officials are upset by the practice.
A teacher given a layoff notice by a school district is unemployed once the school year ends, Boudreau said. "Under the law, you have a right to file for unemployment," she said.
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