The Clark County school district, in the face of a serious statewide revenue shortfall, nevertheless has agreed to give Clark County teachers a 4 percent pay hike on top of the 4 percent pay hike they are already scheduled to receive from the state of Nevada on July 1st. This rather lucrative 8 percent pay hike is the reward teachers in Clark County are getting for cranking out results such as 90 percent of high school students being unable to pass a basic Algebra test. Go figure.
But here’s the thing that really bothers me about this. The school district negotiated this agreement with the union to give teachers this nice little pay raise. And this week, the union’s members who will be pocketing the extra dough got to vote on whether or not to accept the salary increase and ratify the agreement.
Why, pray tell, do the employees get to vote on whether or not to accept the money, but the folks who will be forced to cough up the extra dough get no say in the matter whatsoever? If the government workers who are getting the money are allowed to vote on whether or not to accept the negotiated compensation package, then taxpayers who have to pay the money should get an opportunity to vote on that package as well.
The time is long overdue to require a vote of the people to approve any and all collective bargaining agreements for government workers. These kinds of lucrative out-of-control contracts recently resulted in bankrupting an entire California city. Nevada better do something about this soon before some of our own local governments fall to the same fate.
Posted on May 31st, 2008 by chuckmuth
Filed under: National
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