Northwestern Lehigh Teachers Union Hypocrisy

NORTHWESTERN LEHIGH TEACHERS UNION HAS SHORT MEMORY

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” Mark Twain

  

It has come to our attention that the teachers union has posted a graph showing the fund balance accumulated over the last 6 years. This is interesting in that the union members endorsed candidates for school director and circulated campaign literature during the primary that stated the then current board had run budget deficits for the last 3 years. Teachers union members also espoused those untruths to the community. We now see that these untruthful methods were all about electing school directors that will pad the pockets of the union members. Below is a copy of their post on the union Facebook page.

 I have never heard anyone compare lifetime career compensation. Other than professional athletes whose careers are often short due to injuries, does anyone in the private sector attempt to talk about lifetime career compensation?

As for their wages declining over the past 6 years, they have received raises between 2.9% and 3% every year.  This is comparable with most other school districts. Their wages increased 28.7% from 2008 to 2015.  The total taxpayer wage increases in NW Lehigh were 17.6% over that period. These are real factual numbers calculated from the union contract and from the earned income revenue of the district. Comparing wages with more affluent school districts without taking into account the increase or decrease in the wages of the taxpayers is irrelevant and unacceptable.

If the fact that the school board (with cooperation of the administration) has increased the fund balance by responsible use of taxpayer dollars is going to be a problem for the union, then the fund balance should be returned to the taxpayers. These balances have been set aside for downturns in the economy and emergencies. We have heard complaints from some that the several million dollars spent from the fund balance to replace the 50-year old heating system should have been borrowed to keep money on hand to fund the teacher's out-of-control pension fund. These monies in the fund balance are the property of the taxpayers, not the union.

The union was offered pay increases, 3.4% each year for 3 years, which is approximately 30% above what has been granted to other school districts in recent years. The only reason that there is no contract after 171 days is because the union believes it will get a better deal from the new board it helped to elect.

Below is a copy of the campaign literature of the school teachers union endorsed candidates.

This is the flyer that was distributed by the above candidates and the teachers union. As you can see,  they stated that there was a deficit for every year, and that by the end of their term there would be a total deficit of $5,200,000.  This flyer, as stated at the bottom right, was paid for by the candidates listed on the flyer. One might excuse the new candidates due to the fact that they had never attended a school board meeting and may not have been aware of the facts. But I must assume that the leader of this slate, Willard Dellicker, the sitting president of the school board, must have known the facts concerning the fund balances.  Mr. Dellicker has been a member of the school board for decades; I don't know how this could have happened. I hope Mr. Dellicker can explain to the residents of the district, that he represents on the school board, how this erroneous information was endorsed by him.   I don't recall any attempts to correct this during the election or after. This flyer was distributed by members of the union to their neighbors and members of the community who trusted their knowledge of the finances of the school. These facts could have been checked at any time by just asking the superintendent or the business manager, but I assume they did not. How are they going to repair their credibility with their neighbors and members of the community?

Now we see that they found that there is actually a fund balance increase of some $11,000,000, in the last 4 years.  I wonder were they obtained this truthful information. It is ironic that they now believe there is an increase in the fund balance and they should have a share of it.