The city of Cincinnati is broke.

Their 2011 budget includes a $55 million deficit. Part of the problem is that Cincinnati public employees enjoy some of the most generous perks in the state.

The City Council-approved contracts include benefits that, among other things, permit manyworkers to draw 13 sick days a year, grant three weeks’ worth of compensatory time to public safety employees for holidays whether they work them or not, and entitle veteran police officers to nearly 10½ weeks of various leaves annually.

That’s bad enough, but here’s what makes it even worse. These employees can save up all those days and cash them in when they retire or leave for another job. It isn’t rare for these payouts to be over six figures.

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Dick Morris has picked up on a theme Education Action Group has been trumpeting for months: public employee union contracts, including school employee contracts, are unsustainable and have several states on the verge of fiscal collapse.

Recently on Fox News, Morris suggested California, Michigan, Illinois, New York, and Connecticut are the top five most likely to default, given the severity of their situation and the unlikelihood of the Feds or bond holders coming to the rescue.

“Education Action Group has been way ahead of the curve on this,” Morris told me.  “EAG has been showing the major spending problems, stemming from outrageous contracts, for quite some time.”

Buffalo Public Schools revealed recently that it spent $9 million last year alone on elective surgery for employees.  Coverage for such an extravagance, by its very nature taking funds away from the education of children, was due to the collective bargaining agreement.

In Milwaukee, the school district pays nearly $24,000 per employee for health insurance because such lavish benefits are demanded by the union. (more…)

When the Congress passed the Public School Bailout, it was akin to slapping a band-aid on a bleeding head wound.  American public school systems spend somewhere around a half-trillion dollars a year, and another $10 billion is going to make everything alright?  Hardly.

Public schools have a serious spending problem.   When a local teachers union bargains with the school district over a new teacher contract, the new contract typically includes all kinds of hidden expenses.  Collective bargaining agreements typically put school districts on the hook for sick leave pay, cash payouts for unused sick days, release time to conduct union business, and other embedded costs that cause school districts to hemorrhage huge amounts of money.

News coverage of teacher contracts, if there is any, is rarely controversial or in-depth.  It usually covers the general raise every employee receives, as well as the modest increase in health insurance co-pays.  But dig beneath the surface, and a different story emerges.

Education Action Group is dedicated to pointing out the huge spending problems plaguing our schools.  We recently conducted an analysis of nearly 20 teacher contracts in southwest Ohio and uncovered some shocking numbers.  For example, Cincinnati Public Schools spent $7.5 million on sick leave in last year.  How many teacher salaries would that cover?

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The two national teachers unions thought they had it all figured out: seek a $23 billion bailout for public schools and it would result in a windfall of dues money.  Nearly $19 million for the National Education Association and almost $8 million for the American Federation of Teachers by my calculation – a handsome payback for the unions’ election support.

But the trough appears to be closing just as the unions were straightening their bibs.

That, of course, is a good thing for the American taxpayers – and the kids the union purports to put first who would ultimately be stuck with the bill.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) recently failed to garner the votes necessary to attach the Keep Our Educators Working Act to a supplemental defense spending bill, but D.C. lawmakers are expected to continue to push for the legislation.

Harkin would have needed 60 votes, and the support of Republicans, to attach the fund as an amendment to the defense bill, which recently passed without the school employee bailout amendment.

“I have no Republicans who will vote for it,” Harkin told Reuters.

My guess is that he’s got a few Democrats eyeing the November election and sensing a pitchfork mentality among the voters and they wouldn’t support it, either.

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