CHARLESTON, W. Va. – West Virginia lawmakers wanted to change the sick leave policy for school employees to align it with the way other state employees accrue leave time and help schools save money.

The state’s two largest teachers associations, however, lobbied hard against the legislation and effectively killed the proposal in the Senate Education Committee this week, the Charleston Gazette reports.

“This is another slap in the face,” West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee said, according to the newspaper. “We’re making a rule for a small minority of people. It’s going to hurt a lot more people than it’s going to help.”

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Senate Bill 514 would have changed the current leave policy for school employees – which awards them 15 days off at the beginning of the school year – to a system in which they would accrue 1.5 days per month of work, like other state employees, the Gazette reports.

School district officials testified the current system encourages teachers to take time off, and results in a multi-million annual expense for substitute teachers. EAGnews has repeatedly documented the financial pain generous leave policies inflict on public school systems across the country.

In West Virginia, state Sen. Erik Wells, sponsor of SB514, explained that an accrual-type system would help curb abuse while remaining fair to school employees, the Gazette reports.

“This bill does not take away any days they’ve had,” he said. “They will simply accrue it like other state employees.”

Unfortunately, lawmakers caved to the WVEA and the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia – which also lobbied against the bill – and voted down the measure in a split decision Thursday.

So much for helping cash-strapped schools save money to spend on students. The unions win again.