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July 31, 2010
Press Release
For Immediate Release
October 25, 2001
Judge to Order WEA to Protect Non-members
In July, the Washington Education Association (WEA) was ordered by Thurston County Superior Court to pay a $400,000 fine and an estimated $100,000 in legal fees in July. The fine was the first of a two-part remedy and penalized WEA's intentional use of non-member teachers' funds for election activities in the last five years.
On Friday, November 9th the second part of the remedy will be argued. The state AG will ask the judge to order the WEA to make a number of changes specifically to protect non-members from being used as a funding source for election activities in the future.
Both WEA and the Attorney General appear to agree to an order that:
- WEA will send 4,000+ teachers an EFF refund of 8% of fees for the 01-02 and the 02-03 school years (teachers will receive $47 for a total of $188,800).
- WEA must establish a new internal tracking budget code for the range of election affecting expenditures.
- Each year WEA give an automatic refund of the likely election spending amount plus a "cushion" of an extra 3% to all non-members instead of only refunding those who submit a letter in the fall.
The Judge will have to decide on or after the November 9 hearing on these components of the order:
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Attorney General seeks: | WEA seeks: |
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Clarify "election expenditures" that cannot be funded from non-members' fees includes: all political advertising, contributions, in-kind contributions, independent expenditures, election-related communication to members, and salaries, expenses and overhead for the execution of all election-affecting activities. | Leave undefined the prohibited "election expenditures." Likely this would mean only reportable direct and in-kind contributions are prohibited from non-members fees. |
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Require new, more strict record-keeping including: descriptions of the weekly activities of those working on election activities (as defined above), review of the staff time records by a supervisor, and independent review by an auditor. | Current method of vague weekly activity reports by staff which are only reviewed if a challenge is brought in future years. |
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All advertising expenditures recorded and described as to whether they are considered to influence an election or not. | Not addressed. |
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Allow non-members and members to view the details of the records pertaining to election-affecting expenditures. | Current system of refusing access to fiscal records of expenditures. |
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Establish a mechanism for non-members to challenge the WEA's refund amount. | Non-members can file a new state complaint if they disagree with the refund amount. |
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Evergreen Freedom Foundation
P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507
Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874
Email: effwa@effwa.org |
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