RALEIGH – There is a simmering feud emerging between the N.C. Association of Educators (NCAE), Democrat State Auditor Beth Wood, and Conservative lawmakers on Jones Street.
The developing drama is full of lawbreaking, lies, and Democrats running protection for a Left-leaning union that is milking a law that steals money from taxpayers to grease the wheels of unions.
“Last week, State Auditor Beth Wood reported that her office had been unable to certify the membership numbers of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE). State law (G.S. 143B-426.40(g) requires the auditor to certify employee associations meet threshold membership requirements before the state provides payroll dues deduction services.
It was the third year in a row NCAE refused to comply with the Auditor’s request for membership information.”
The NCAE refuses to comply because the data would show that they have fallen well below the threshold to access state payroll deduction services. If the union cannot access those services, they would lose even more money as many more teachers would be unlikely to go through the trouble of funding an organization more interested in Leftist political goals than educating our children.
“In the meantime, North Carolina state government – using taxpayer dollars – continues to provide payroll dues services for organizations that meet the membership requirement – as well as for NCAE which does not.
[…]
Of course, these developments beg the question: Why do North Carolina taxpayers continue to fund dues deduction payroll services to an organization that refuses to provide information to verify it has sufficient membership to legally receive the service?
With their refusal to report membership figures, the only logical conclusion is that NCAE lacks the membership numbers to qualify for dues payroll deduction. The fact is, the benefits of payroll deduction are sufficiently large enough that you can be sure if NCAE had at least 40,000 members, the State Auditor would be certifying the numbers.”
I wonder why Democrat Beth Wood is so quick to throw her hands up and when taxpayer money is on the line? Could it be that she is partial to an organization that overwhelmingly supports Democrats across North Carolina?
“It’s no secret that NCAE is the biggest lobbying group for public school teachers in North Carolina. It’s also no secret an overwhelmingly high percentage of NCAE campaign contributions go to Democrats, regardless of the political leanings of its members. According to Follow the Money.org, over the past twenty-three years, only 5.6 percent of NCAE campaign contributions in North Carolina went to Republican candidates; 87 percent went to Democratic candidates, the remainder went to non-designated, nonpartisan or third-party candidates.”
The NCAE is hemorrhaging money, losing members, violating the law and an Democrat elected official is protecting them because they play for her team. Shameful.
More importantly, why are taxpayers funding payroll services for private organizations at all? That should stop right away, and luckily a few conservative lawmakers agree.
Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Madison) introduced legislation last year that would make progress toward that common sense solution. While the N.C. Senate passed the bill, it never passed the N.C. House. Luckily the chamber can take it up for consideration again when they return to Jones Street in 2018, but in the meantime a bevy of Leftist union organizations will be milking taxpayers so they can goad members into automatically funding these collectives.
We’ll see if Republicans in the House can put an end to this nonsense come January.
Read more here.
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