By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

LANSING, Mich. – For decades, teachers unions in Michigan and across the nation have used their collective bargaining power to pressure school boards into paying the salaries of teachers who work full time on union business.

The scam has gone largely unnoticed by taxpayers, who often unwittingly spend six figures per year to pay school employees who never step foot in a classroom. Those employees receive tax dollars to organize protests, handle grievances, and dream up new ways to divert tax money from the classroom and into their members’ pockets.

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But a bill currently under consideration in the Michigan Senate would put the brakes on the racket by prohibiting union officer “release time” unless the union repays the local district for the cost of a substitute teacher, according to MLive.com.

The bill could save cash-strapped schools a lot of money.

In a 2010 report, EAGnews documented the expense of union release time in numerous school districts across the state. Some districts pay teachers for a stipulated number of days to perform union business, while others pay the local union president a full-time salary (plus benefits) to work full-time for the union.

The report highlighted the Rochester and Troy school districts, which covered 100 percent of the cost of salary and benefits for one educator to work full-time for the teachers union. The annual expense totaled about $120,000 and $130,000, respectively.

In some districts, teachers unions chipped in on some of the expense. For example, the Ann Arbor school district and union split the cost of the release time, which still required the district to pay out $50,000 to employ a teacher who doesn’t teach. In Kalamazoo, the union covered $25,000 of the release time, which left taxpayers on the hook for the bulk of the expense.

Leaders of the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, were not available for comment on the Senate legislation, and we think we know why.

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There is no justifiable reason for financially challenged schools (or any schools)  to spend tax dollars to subsidize the state’s multi-million dollar teachers unions.

The Michigan bill, sponsored by Rep. Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy, cleared the state House last year by a 12-vote margin but didn’t make it to the Senate until this year, Mlive.com reports.