The tangled web grows
Colorado Springs Education Association labor union executive board member Lori Watson contributed her opinion in the two previous articles dealing with the labor union scandal. She ended one of her posts by declaring that there was no "drama" to be found in the union spat. Another "anonymous" union member wrote in, also, and between Lori and this other member, we received clarification as to the turmoil in the local political machine.
Despite the clarification, there does appear to be more to the labor union story than was released. This should not be surprising. The labor union members are under orders to keep this scandal as quiet as possible. None of the members will say anything to Gazette reporter Shari Griffin for fear of retaliation by labor union bosses. It appears that the internal labor union discord goes beyond the issue of "misuse of public funds."
The following email was sent to fellow labor union members by teacher Sandra Cox. Sandra is not related to me in any way, and she did not forward this email to me.
From: COX, SANDRA
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 7:26 AM
To: ALLEN, MARTHA E.; ALVAREZ, MARTHA J.; BACH, CAROL E.; BAKER, RODNEY D.; BELL, BROOKE E.; BENNETT, MARILYN R.; BLAKELY, TERESA R.; BOYD, STUART J.; BRIDGEWATER, ROXANNE L; BROWN, DEBRA ANN; CAMPBELL, ROBERT EDMUND; CICCARELLI-CLOTHIER, DIANE; CLINE, KELLY L.; COLBY, MARK D.; CONNELL, RACHEL; CONSTANT, DEXTER C; COVINGTON, JAMES; CROSSON, KAREN L; CROWDER-JR, ROBERT H; DAVIDSON, MARTIN P.; DAVIS, REBECCA; DEFELICE, ALICE A.; DEL MARGO, ELLEN M; DEMEL, ANNETTE R.; DUVAL, CHRISTOPHER C.; GARRETT, SAMANTHA P.; GEE, KENNETH B; GILLIAM III, ROBERT H.; GOULDING, PHILIP; GRANTZ, JAMES S.; HAMPSON, NANCY E; HANAWALT, MARTHA N.; HARTMAN, PAUL J.; HAWKINSON, CHRISTINE L.; HEGERT, TODD S.; HENDRICKSON, CINDY JILL; HERGERT, PAULA K.; HIENTON, JEFFREY D.; HOFFMAN, PROMIS; HOKANSON, PETER C; JOINER, JEREMY S; KELLER, JIMMY J; KERN, STEPHEN C.; KLICHE, DEBORAH J.; KNIGHT, KELLEN K.; KOBYLECKI, EMIL F.; KOSELAK, JEREMY J.; KWAPY, JUSTINA E.; LEE-ESTRADA, KARLA A; LEWIS, GEOFFREY T; LINDAU, FRANZISKA; LIPPERT, CLAUDINE; MACFARLANE, JOHN A.; MCCOMB, RONALD W.; MIMS, JOHN W.; NAULT, MICHAEL P.; NORRIS, GEORGE D; ORTIZ, JOHN L.; OWENS, KAREN DUNCAN; PELLOW, NANCY A; PETTIGREW, NEIL; PHELPS, MELANIE; PIFFARERIO, MARY; POESE, NEIL M.; POUCEL, BONNIE B; POWELL, KIRK D; QUALLS, MARK E; RACHWITZ, KATHRYN; REID, VICTORIA L; REWEY, ERICA J.; SAWTELLE, DAVID A; SCHOENSTEIN, PATRICIA; SCHULZKI, ANTON G; SCHWARTZ, CINDEE W; SERIO, JOSEPHINE ANN; SHACKELFORD, DAVID L.; SHAFER, JOSHUA J; SIMMONS, MARY; SMITH, KEITH E.; SMITH, SANDRA J.; STEWART, CATHERINE ELEENE; STROUP, SCOTT A.; SWANKOWSKI, JULIE; TAYLOR, ROBERT P; THOMASSON, NOLA; TIERNAN, MARILYN J; URBAN, SONIA M; WOLKEN, LESLIE C
Subject: CSEA Alert
You may be concerned and confused by the events of the last few weeks. This communication is to help clarify the issues surrounding these events.
On May 11th in a vote of 8-0, the CSEA Board of Directors called for the President of CSEA's resignation because of the following:
Financial Improprieties
1. The President's expense account was exceeded by 56%. $6,000 was budgeted and $9,341 was spent.
2. The President's total compensation for this school year was to be $107,837 which is a 27% increase over the previous President's compensation. District 11 teachers received a 1% salary increase.
3. The President spent $17,000 on shirts and water bottles for members without board or Uniserve director approval.
4. For the first time since 1997 money had to be transferred from savings to balance the CSEA operating budget.
District Investigation
1. The CSEA President submitted a ProGrad expense voucher to the District that had a forged signature.
2. The president requested $1000 from ProGrad when CSEA had already paid for the trip.
3. The president received the $1000 from ProGrad in June 2006 and kept the $1000 until April 2007 when the CSEA board directed her to return it to the district.
In order to protect the members of this organization and the association's financial well being, the CSEA Board of Directors voted on May 11th to:
1. Ask the President to resign
2. Revoke the President's credit card privileges
3. Cancel the remaining balance of the President's $39,000 supplemental pay
As a result, in a retaliatory action recall petitions have been circulated against CSEA board members who have spoken up and taken positions to protect the membership of CSEA. After being informed of the above details, members have gone back and crossed their names off of the recall petitions. Should you?
I think that "concerned and confused" goes way beyond the members of the labor union.
Notice the big issue here - "financial improprieties." If you read my two previous posts, both union members who wrote into the blog stated that there was "no wrong doing," just an internal issue that was resolved by two people agreeing to step down, all for the good of the labor union, of course.
Irma Valerio exceeded her expense account by 56%. That was a $3,341 overage. When ex-school board member Eric Christen properly went to the school board and requested permission to be reimbursed for spending a couple hundred dollars over his $2,000 account, union members and union school board members, with the help of the Gazette, tried to make it into a scandal. Where is D-11 Treasurer Jan Tanner in this story? Here we have a clear-cut case of financial shenanigans, and she is deathly silent.
Valerio spent $17,000 on shirts to reward loyal labor union supporters. Christen was chastised for expensing $20-$30 for lunches with constituents. $17,000 for t-shirts? How did that help the children?
The average teacher salary in D-11 is $45,000. That is the figure that the district CFO uses for planning purposes. Valerio, like any other labor union president, does not spend a minute of her time teaching kids while serving as president. Despite that fact, and despite the fact that the labor union defends its secrecy because it is a "private organization," D-11 tax payers pay 1/4 of the labor union president's salary. D-11 tax payers paid Valerio almost $30,000 for not teaching. As Sandra Cox pointed out, Valerio took a 27% increase in her own salary while only getting a 1% raise for fellow teachers during contract negotiations. According to what she has said to supporters, she deserved the raise for her role in making the public believe that the reformers were causing chaos in the district. Notice how the labor union places a much higher premium on the value of a labor union political activist than it does on teachers in the classroom. No outstanding teachers in D-11 would ever be allowed to negotiate that type of salary for themselves with the school district. The labor union would kill any such effort.
The D-11 administration has yet to announce the results of its investigation of the theft of public funds. CFO Glenn Gustafson is likely trying to figure out the best method to sweep the whole incident under the rug. It is irrelevant at this point that Valerio reimbursed the district for her theft. If someone robs a bank and then returns the money 10 months later, they do not receive a free pass. Valerio did not do the right thing because it was right; she did what she needed to do because she was caught.
The labor union leadership likes to pretend that its focus is on kids. Nothing could be further from the truth. The CSEA is a hard-core political machine, and like many other "education" unions or Teamsters or Steelworkers, corruption is a major part of the union existence. While labor union activists were screaming and hollering about how evil the reformers were, this internal scandal, which involves an apparent felony level offense, was being hidden from public view.
This festering issue directly involves teachers who are supposed to be focusing on kids. Notice that there will be no outcry from ex-board members over this scandal. No public comments from Lyman Kaiser or Karen Teja. No press conferences by Lynn Peterson or Mary Ellen McNally. No concern for the district by Norvelle Simpson or Annie Oatman-Gardner. If anything highlights what these sad people are all about, their silence on this major issue illustrates that point loud and clear.
This incident also highlights the terrible lack of leadership on the school board. Despite the turmoil that this is causing among teachers, no one on the union purchased board has had the guts to call for an end to the internal bickering, and no one has had the guts to call for an end to labor union access to public funds.
Despite the clarification, there does appear to be more to the labor union story than was released. This should not be surprising. The labor union members are under orders to keep this scandal as quiet as possible. None of the members will say anything to Gazette reporter Shari Griffin for fear of retaliation by labor union bosses. It appears that the internal labor union discord goes beyond the issue of "misuse of public funds."
The following email was sent to fellow labor union members by teacher Sandra Cox. Sandra is not related to me in any way, and she did not forward this email to me.
From: COX, SANDRA
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 7:26 AM
To: ALLEN, MARTHA E.; ALVAREZ, MARTHA J.; BACH, CAROL E.; BAKER, RODNEY D.; BELL, BROOKE E.; BENNETT, MARILYN R.; BLAKELY, TERESA R.; BOYD, STUART J.; BRIDGEWATER, ROXANNE L; BROWN, DEBRA ANN; CAMPBELL, ROBERT EDMUND; CICCARELLI-CLOTHIER, DIANE; CLINE, KELLY L.; COLBY, MARK D.; CONNELL, RACHEL; CONSTANT, DEXTER C; COVINGTON, JAMES; CROSSON, KAREN L; CROWDER-JR, ROBERT H; DAVIDSON, MARTIN P.; DAVIS, REBECCA; DEFELICE, ALICE A.; DEL MARGO, ELLEN M; DEMEL, ANNETTE R.; DUVAL, CHRISTOPHER C.; GARRETT, SAMANTHA P.; GEE, KENNETH B; GILLIAM III, ROBERT H.; GOULDING, PHILIP; GRANTZ, JAMES S.; HAMPSON, NANCY E; HANAWALT, MARTHA N.; HARTMAN, PAUL J.; HAWKINSON, CHRISTINE L.; HEGERT, TODD S.; HENDRICKSON, CINDY JILL; HERGERT, PAULA K.; HIENTON, JEFFREY D.; HOFFMAN, PROMIS; HOKANSON, PETER C; JOINER, JEREMY S; KELLER, JIMMY J; KERN, STEPHEN C.; KLICHE, DEBORAH J.; KNIGHT, KELLEN K.; KOBYLECKI, EMIL F.; KOSELAK, JEREMY J.; KWAPY, JUSTINA E.; LEE-ESTRADA, KARLA A; LEWIS, GEOFFREY T; LINDAU, FRANZISKA; LIPPERT, CLAUDINE; MACFARLANE, JOHN A.; MCCOMB, RONALD W.; MIMS, JOHN W.; NAULT, MICHAEL P.; NORRIS, GEORGE D; ORTIZ, JOHN L.; OWENS, KAREN DUNCAN; PELLOW, NANCY A; PETTIGREW, NEIL; PHELPS, MELANIE; PIFFARERIO, MARY; POESE, NEIL M.; POUCEL, BONNIE B; POWELL, KIRK D; QUALLS, MARK E; RACHWITZ, KATHRYN; REID, VICTORIA L; REWEY, ERICA J.; SAWTELLE, DAVID A; SCHOENSTEIN, PATRICIA; SCHULZKI, ANTON G; SCHWARTZ, CINDEE W; SERIO, JOSEPHINE ANN; SHACKELFORD, DAVID L.; SHAFER, JOSHUA J; SIMMONS, MARY; SMITH, KEITH E.; SMITH, SANDRA J.; STEWART, CATHERINE ELEENE; STROUP, SCOTT A.; SWANKOWSKI, JULIE; TAYLOR, ROBERT P; THOMASSON, NOLA; TIERNAN, MARILYN J; URBAN, SONIA M; WOLKEN, LESLIE C
Subject: CSEA Alert
You may be concerned and confused by the events of the last few weeks. This communication is to help clarify the issues surrounding these events.
On May 11th in a vote of 8-0, the CSEA Board of Directors called for the President of CSEA's resignation because of the following:
Financial Improprieties
1. The President's expense account was exceeded by 56%. $6,000 was budgeted and $9,341 was spent.
2. The President's total compensation for this school year was to be $107,837 which is a 27% increase over the previous President's compensation. District 11 teachers received a 1% salary increase.
3. The President spent $17,000 on shirts and water bottles for members without board or Uniserve director approval.
4. For the first time since 1997 money had to be transferred from savings to balance the CSEA operating budget.
District Investigation
1. The CSEA President submitted a ProGrad expense voucher to the District that had a forged signature.
2. The president requested $1000 from ProGrad when CSEA had already paid for the trip.
3. The president received the $1000 from ProGrad in June 2006 and kept the $1000 until April 2007 when the CSEA board directed her to return it to the district.
In order to protect the members of this organization and the association's financial well being, the CSEA Board of Directors voted on May 11th to:
1. Ask the President to resign
2. Revoke the President's credit card privileges
3. Cancel the remaining balance of the President's $39,000 supplemental pay
As a result, in a retaliatory action recall petitions have been circulated against CSEA board members who have spoken up and taken positions to protect the membership of CSEA. After being informed of the above details, members have gone back and crossed their names off of the recall petitions. Should you?
I think that "concerned and confused" goes way beyond the members of the labor union.
Notice the big issue here - "financial improprieties." If you read my two previous posts, both union members who wrote into the blog stated that there was "no wrong doing," just an internal issue that was resolved by two people agreeing to step down, all for the good of the labor union, of course.
Irma Valerio exceeded her expense account by 56%. That was a $3,341 overage. When ex-school board member Eric Christen properly went to the school board and requested permission to be reimbursed for spending a couple hundred dollars over his $2,000 account, union members and union school board members, with the help of the Gazette, tried to make it into a scandal. Where is D-11 Treasurer Jan Tanner in this story? Here we have a clear-cut case of financial shenanigans, and she is deathly silent.
Valerio spent $17,000 on shirts to reward loyal labor union supporters. Christen was chastised for expensing $20-$30 for lunches with constituents. $17,000 for t-shirts? How did that help the children?
The average teacher salary in D-11 is $45,000. That is the figure that the district CFO uses for planning purposes. Valerio, like any other labor union president, does not spend a minute of her time teaching kids while serving as president. Despite that fact, and despite the fact that the labor union defends its secrecy because it is a "private organization," D-11 tax payers pay 1/4 of the labor union president's salary. D-11 tax payers paid Valerio almost $30,000 for not teaching. As Sandra Cox pointed out, Valerio took a 27% increase in her own salary while only getting a 1% raise for fellow teachers during contract negotiations. According to what she has said to supporters, she deserved the raise for her role in making the public believe that the reformers were causing chaos in the district. Notice how the labor union places a much higher premium on the value of a labor union political activist than it does on teachers in the classroom. No outstanding teachers in D-11 would ever be allowed to negotiate that type of salary for themselves with the school district. The labor union would kill any such effort.
The D-11 administration has yet to announce the results of its investigation of the theft of public funds. CFO Glenn Gustafson is likely trying to figure out the best method to sweep the whole incident under the rug. It is irrelevant at this point that Valerio reimbursed the district for her theft. If someone robs a bank and then returns the money 10 months later, they do not receive a free pass. Valerio did not do the right thing because it was right; she did what she needed to do because she was caught.
The labor union leadership likes to pretend that its focus is on kids. Nothing could be further from the truth. The CSEA is a hard-core political machine, and like many other "education" unions or Teamsters or Steelworkers, corruption is a major part of the union existence. While labor union activists were screaming and hollering about how evil the reformers were, this internal scandal, which involves an apparent felony level offense, was being hidden from public view.
This festering issue directly involves teachers who are supposed to be focusing on kids. Notice that there will be no outcry from ex-board members over this scandal. No public comments from Lyman Kaiser or Karen Teja. No press conferences by Lynn Peterson or Mary Ellen McNally. No concern for the district by Norvelle Simpson or Annie Oatman-Gardner. If anything highlights what these sad people are all about, their silence on this major issue illustrates that point loud and clear.
This incident also highlights the terrible lack of leadership on the school board. Despite the turmoil that this is causing among teachers, no one on the union purchased board has had the guts to call for an end to the internal bickering, and no one has had the guts to call for an end to labor union access to public funds.
posted by Craig Cox | 5:22 PM
12 Comments:
Is there a place where we can see the job description for the union president? Since she is paid partially with public funds, I want to know what job she is performing for that 6 figure income.
I know that forgery is mentioned in the email, but you forgot to point out that that is also a fairly major offense. You can't "give back" a forged signature, can you?
She forged her name?! That is a crime! Good grief, these people teach our kids?!
So is she going back to the classroom now? Where is the press on this?!
Incredulous, there is no job description posted for the union president. They depend on public apathy to get away with taking public funds for no public work. Their job is to run the local political machine for their national masters, the NEA. They will claim that they are an independent organization that is not controlled by the NEA, but look at the email from Sandra. She points out that the Uniserve director did not approve the money for the t-shirts. The Uniserve director is the NEA watchdog over the local labor unions.
Anony, yes forgery is a crime. It is interesting that the D11 administration keeps saying that there will probably be no charges filed against Valerio since she returned that which she stold. However, as Incredy points out, how can you return a forged signature?
I don't know why we get all upset with the Unions. The union leadership is doing what they are supposed to be, protecting their members. Their job is to give lackluster people job security, where none should exist. Sadly the public fails to miss the point that the CSEA or any of the other teacher unions have nothing to do with improving student performance or raising our kids out of the depths of inadequacy.
Actually the teacher’s unions benefit from poor performance. According to the US Department of Education, 9% of 4th graders in 1998 needed some sort of testing accommodation for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In 2006 that number was up to 20%. In 1998 the number for 8th and 12th graders were 9% and 6% respectively, 2006 saw 16% of 8th graders and 11% of 12th graders identified with some sort of disability (http://nationsreportcard.gov/civics_2006/c0114.asp). This is amazing to me because I didn’t hear about any massive plague that occurred among the youth of America leaving them disabled in the streets. So of course we need more specialists and the students need more “accommodations”. This is all just another way that the Unions benefit from the dumbing down of our kids.
Sadly the commodity is intelligence and Unions realize that the more intelligence that they actually impart the greater the reduction in their power and more importantly Union dues. As people realize that they are endowed with great powers within themselves and that they are actually the power of their own future, and not the unions, then they find another way to be benefited for their knowledge and know how. As intelligence continues to be bridled and held back, the Unions keep their subjects just subservient enough to think that they couldn’t improve their lives without Unions representation and sadly the ones who pay the price are our kids and the great teachers that our schools house, but the Unions won’t let us reward.
Kent, the unions do remarkably well tricking teachers into believing that they actually need the labor union. It is sad that the public, in general, still believes that the "education associations" actually have something to do with education. It's all about power and politics.
While the labor union does protect poor performing teachers, I think that it does a poor job representing teachers. Excellent teachers should be paid what the are worth. Labor union leaders won't stand for that. Meanwhile, they pull down 6-figures each year for themselves.
It's interesting that you talk about the union tricking teachers. When I ran for the board in 2005, union reps told teachers many things - the union rep at Coronado, for instance, was telling teachers and others I'd get rid of their health insurance if elected. One of my kids' former teachers actually wrote to me and asked if it was true that if elected, I'd gut the Master Agreement and cut salaries, because didn't I understand she had a mortgage to pay and groceries to buy? I don't know what bothers me most about that experience - the outright lies told by union operatives, or the fact that some of the people entrusted with teaching our kids critical thinking skills demonstrated a complete lack of critical thinking skills. Apparently, it didn't occur to those who believed to ask why anyone would want to pay teachers less than the little they already make.
What is clear is that the union can't afford for the truth to be told. What's sad is that so many actually believe the lies.
How does one signal to the district board that they want the relationship with the union reigned in, severed, realigned, whatever? How does one communicate to whomever can make the changes that changes are long overdue? Thanks for your response.
Does D11 have to hire union teachers exclusively? If the union is such a problem, then why not hire non-union teachers which would dilute the power of the union. Do other school districts use non-union teachers?
If D11 could hire non-union teachers, then it seems that the board would have more latitude in firing poorly performing teachers and rewarding good teachers with pay-for-performance.
Maybe that just makes too much sense.
D11 hires the teachers. The teacher then decides to join the CSEA. There are teachers in D11 who are not members of the CSEA. The catch is that the CSEA represents all teachers during the contract negotiations regardless of membership postion. What this really means, for example, is that the district cannot use pay-for-performance for some teachers without it being negotiated into the contract. That will never happen under the current CSEA position, which coincides with the Colorado Education Association and the National Education Association positions. Additionally, no poorly performing teachers can be fired without every "i" dotted and "t" crossed, in accordance with the contract, known as the Master Agreement. One mistake can mean that nothing happens.
As for getting the BOE to take action, you can speak at any board meeting and file your complaints or kudos, but you must sign up first. You can check with the assistant board secretary at the district admin building to get the exact procedure. You should do that. The board was purchased by the educartel, which includes the local version, CSEA, so it will take repeated complaints, from many people to get their attention. Good luck. You may find that once you start, you may get many more to speak out.
Anony #1, you can write to the board members about this issue. Their email addresses are posted on the D11 website. As Just stopping mentioned, you can also speak to the board at a BOE meeting. The hurdle you face is that all members of this board, minus Willie Breazell, were hand picked by the labor union. That comes in handy in times like this. These board members will not utter one negative word about the union scandal. Their futures depend on their silence.
Anony #2, as just passing stated, the master agreement dictates that all teachers have to be treated by the district as if they are unionized. Note that only the district is bound by that particular article. Non-union teachers are treated as outcasts by labor union leaders, and even by other articles in the master agreement. Good teachers are not being protected by the agreement. They are in high demand and will always be safe. Low performing teachers are the ones being protected, and they are (no coincidence) usually the most active and mouthy in the labor union. High performing teachers are not being paid market value thanks to their own union leadership. Meanwhile, the do-nothing leaders get paid $107,000 and then have to steal on top of that.
Wow, what a confusing mess. So what I'm hearing is that it is because of the BOE that the district is required to negotiate the teacher's contract with CSEA.
And any change to that policy is a BOE decision.
I would think that the district would be able to find plenty of qualified teachers without that ridiculous master agreement controlled by CSEA. As Mr. Cox stated, good teachers don't need protection, and good teachers shouldn't have to subsidize poor teachers.
I would like to hear from some teachers.
Wouldn't you like to get paid market value if your skills are in demand?
Don't you think you deserve more pay than the co-worker that is a poor performer?
Wouldn't you like to get a bonus based upon your performance? Wouldn't you like to be a free agent instead of having CSEA negotiate for you?
Do you want to limit your potential in order to subsidize poor performers protected by the union?
As a parent in D11, I think the best teachers deserve much more than what they're getting, and the BOE and CSEA are preventing that from happening!
Confusing, yes; a mess, absolutely. The BOE does not have it in its power to make the labor union go away. Under the current arrangement, the BOE would never challenge the union, a private organization, on any issue since the labor union purchases the BOE members in the first place. I personally have no problem if employees want representation. However, that representation ought to deal with preventing unreasonable working conditions. A 35-1/2 hour work week is an unreasonable imposition on education from the labor union.
To challenge the labor union's monopoly on teacher representation, the contract says that 30% of the bargaining unit must sign a letter declaring that they want to challenge the CSEA. Keep in mind, to become part of the bargaining unit, one must be a hard core labor union person, so chances of a challenge happening are nill.
The board has plenty of authority to make demands of the labor union during negotiations that would benefit kids and tax payers. The board chooses not to ever negotiate with the union on any topic. If the labor union wants a change, it is automatically entered into the contract. The union-purchased school board members never offered a single idea in the 3 years that I served on the school board - not a single idea. The result, as you recognize, is that good teachers get the shaft year after year while union big-wigs get a lot of money for doing nothing related to education.
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