Posted on 04/19/2011 11:48:22 AM PDT by MichCapCon
In the Troy Public School District, a teacher whose total compensation tops $139,000 is paid by the district to do union business. There are 39 other school districts that have similar arrangements and these cost taxpayers $2.7 million.
House Bill 4059 would end that practice. It passed the state House of Representatives on a vote of 59-47 this week. All Democrats and three Republicans voted against the bill.
The Republicans voting with Democrats against the bill were Reps. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan; Paul Muxlow, R-Brown City; and Dale Zorn, R-Ida.
The bill still needs to be passed by the state Senate and the signed by the governor to become law. It is sponsored by Rep. Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy.
“Paying someone with taxpayers’ dollars to negotiate against the taxpayer – it makes no sense,” said Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville. “It’s an abuse of taxpayers’ dollars by one of the wealthiest unions in the states.”
Doug Pratt, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, didn’t return an email seeking comment.
Some of the agreements are in union contracts. The bill wouldn’t impact those arrangements until they expired. But the union officials couldn’t be paid by taxpayer dollars in future agreements.
Michigan Capitol Confidential highlighted the practice of paying teachers to not teach and work on union issues in a March 29 story.
COOL!!
I see that citizens united has gotten the go ahead to collect signatures to recall Rick Snyder.
So typical of the left, they didn’t get their way so they want a do over.
That ought to be interesting, he won by such a large majority. I’m not too sure they will find enough disgruntled voters. So far the only ones he has really angered that I’m aware of are the public union members. There is a proposal floating to tax pensions, but I don’t know where that is in the big scheme. That could bring signatures from the retired who otherwise don’t care.
They need 800,000 signatures. Funny thing is that Snyder will get greater support from people like myself who didn’t much care for him before the election.
I’ve never understood how they get away with this in both the public and private sector.
They get these weenies to become full-time “union reps” where they no longer do the job they were hired for but still get their regular salary from the company.
If the private sector is still dumb enough to put up with this then so be it. However, it is long past time for us taxpayers to put up with such boneheadedness. If the unions want a full-time rep then the rep should be paid by the union from union dues and NOT by the taxpayers who hired a teacher, in this case, NOT a union hack.
Conservatives need to wise up enough to drive a wedge between public and private unions. Its a simple matter of fact that its easier to fight them separately than united.
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