Indiana

THE REST OF THE STORY

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

If you read yesterday’s post, I provided you with some details about why the Indiana State Teacher’s Union is not a big fan of the property tax reform plan that came out of the Legislature.    Well, today I have another one for you.

ISTA was critical of the State picking up the final 15 percent of the operation costs in order to provide homeowners with property tax relief.  In an e-mail to its members the organization said the state picking up the tab would leave no local source of funding for those costs.

What this is really about is contract negotiations.   Think about this.  A few years from now a school district and its local teachers’ union will sit down to negotiate a contract.  Things will go south and probably hit a major impasse.  The union will demand more money and the district will say they don’t have it, the State does so go negotiate with them.  That local will have to go to the state and right after one does it another will follow and then another and then another.

Eventually this could lead to statewide negotiations between the State and ISTA.   And I would argue it would be much more difficult for a teacher’s union to hold the entire state hostage over contract negotiations than a local school district.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).