Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

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1) Teachers’ Unions Set Financial Priorities

2) Last Week’s Intercepts

3) Quote of the Week

Today’s Albany Times-Union has a story about the employee and officer compensation being handed out at the New York State United Teachers under the headline, “NYSUT’s leaders get double-digit raises.” Comparing the union’s IRS Form 990s from 2009 and 2010, the newspaper reports:

NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi received a $44,808 raise, according to the most recent publicly filed tax returns from 2010. His base salary went to $240,180 from $195,372, a 23 percent increase. Iannuzzi’s total compensation, which includes health care, pension and other benefits, is listed at $345,987.

I suppose it’s possible that Iannuzzi’s salary actually increased $44,808 between 2009 and 2010, but union officer compensation is murky territory – deliberately so, in my view.

The compensation figures reported to the IRS are categorized in a number of different ways. For example, in 2008-09 Iannuzzi reported $195,732 in “base compensation,” $40,281 in “other compensation,” and $47,639 in “deferred compensation.” He also received $10,209 in “non-taxable benefits.” A year later, his base compensation jumped to $240,180, but his “other compensation” fell to $30,847. His deferred compensation jumped to $63,207 while his non-taxable benefits rose to $11,753.

As you might imagine, the IRS is mainly concerned with income tax, so it’s important to them to know what part of this compensation is non-taxable and deferred. There isn’t any way to tell what Iannuzzi’s “salary” is from these numbers and the result might be meaningless anyway. The NEA president, for example, gets a base salary set by the board of directors ($280,376 for 2011-12), but also receives a 20% allowance in lieu of benefits (as we learned last week, the NEA president continues to earn pension credit from his former teaching job) and another 20% earmarked for the costs of living in Washington, DC during his term in office.

In NYSUT’s case, we fortunately have a second source of officer compensation – the U.S. Department of Labor’s disclosure report, or LM-2. DOL categorizes compensation differently, breaking it down into “gross salary” and “disbursements for official business.” Here are Iannuzzi’s numbers for the last six years:

2004-05: $197,995 gross salary + $25,839 disbursements = $223,834 total

2005-06: $202,847 + $24,433 = $227,280

2006-07: $209,487 + $29,791 = $239,278

2007-08: $221,250 + $35,828 = $257,078

2008-09: $255,399 + $42,848 = $298,247

2009-10: $262,484 + $31,829 = $294,313

If we look just at gross salary, those are annual increases of 2.5%, 3.3%, 5.6%, 15.4%, and 2.8%.

This makes more sense to me. NYSUT compensation got fat during the fat years, and started returning to lower levels as the recession hit. However you look at it, it’s a good living, and likely to remain so for many, many years as that deferred compensation adds up.

Thirteen school districts are suing the WEA Trust for federal funds held by the union’s subsidiary that the districts claim are rightfully theirs.

Background and points of contention here.

Chanting and drumming are one thing, but setting tax policy is another, as California’s teachers’ unions are learning:

The state’s largest teacher’s union seems to be having reservations about a proposed “millionaire’s tax,” even as labor groups hash out strategies for next year’s elections.

Dean Vogel, president of the powerful California Teachers Association, says a tax on people making $1 million a year or more — a levy being pushed by the smaller California Federation of Teachers — won’t generate enough revenue. He also worries that having more than one tax initiative on the November 2012 ballot would turn off voters.

Not to worry! The “millionaire’s tax” is so last month. CFT is moving on to a half-millionaire’s tax.

Originally, the plan called for an increase on those earning a million dollars or more a year. But as it works out the details, the CFT is now looking at taxing those who make $500,000 or more a year.

Better be careful. Set it a little lower and the tax might impact union officers.

Meanwhile, in Oakland:

Many in the community, including the Alameda Labor Council and many unions as well as community organizations, have supported Occupy Oakland. The California Nurses Association staffed the camp’s first aid clinic, and the Oakland Education Association funded the porta-potties.

The jokes write themselves, folks.

While everyone’s attention was focused on the two union guys in Illinois who got a teachers’ pension for one day of subbing, over in Rhode Island the General Treasurer’s office released figures claiming 58 percent of retired state teachers and 48 percent of retired state employees have pensions that pay them 100 percent or more of their final average salary when they retired.

This reminds me of the dialogue from Animal Crackers:

Click here to read:

1) Friends and Family Plan: NEA to Send 100 Staffers and Kin from DC to Ohio

2) Last Week’s Intercepts

3) Quotes of the Week

Over at Edwize, United Federation of Teachers vice president Leo Casey stands up to The Man, detailing the union’s support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters in a post titled “The One Percent and Us. By “us” he means the taxpaying public, not the UFT, though the latter has a closer relationship to the One Percent than it lets on.

Last August I noted UFT’s $54.5 million mortgage financing deal, and directed readers to a 2002 New York Times article headlined “City Teachers’ Union Gives a Lesson in Real Estate.”

But Casey’s timing is impeccable. His Tom Joad sermon comes the same day as this press release from Fitch Ratings, concerning Goldman Sachs’ 2010 commercial mortgage pass-through certificates. The statement notes the performance of the underlying collateral pool associated with the certificates and informs us:

The largest loan of the pool (10.1%) is secured by a 399,935 square feet (SF) class B office property in the Financial District submarket of Manhattan, NY. The property is 100% occupied by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) under a long-term lease which expires in August 2034. UFT also holds 9.9% ownership interest in the building. The loan is structured with a letter of credit (LOC) which can be drawn upon to cover debt service shortfalls.

Of course, UFT is not responsible for Goldman Sachs’ investment strategy, and I’m sure the union would prefer not to be contributing to the firm’s bottom line, or even to its financial stability. Yet UFT is big business, and it will take more than a few sandwiches delivered to protesters to alter that image.