OPINION
(L-R) PUSD building, Pasadena City Hall (Photo – Graphics Dept.)
During the recent outcry over the allegedly illegal actions of the majority of the PUSD Board and the increase in water and electric rates, I noticed a curious absence of criticism from union members and their allies.
By Walt Beckett
I don’t recall hearing criticism several months ago when a majority of the Board hired a consultant at a cost of more than $230,000 to oversee a process the PUSD Board could have conducted themselves. Similarly, I have wondered why the City’s major employee unions have remained silent about the large increases in water and electricity rates approved over the past several years. For a long time, these silences puzzled me. Then I realized what they reveal about Pasadena politics and governance: organized interests often receive greater consideration than the general public.
The Schools
The teachers’ union president recently criticized those who have been exposing problems with the latest school-closure process. That struck me as odd because the union frequently criticizes the Board’s management of the PUSD budget and consistently seeks additional resources from the Board. Then I realized that decisions are not always made with students and families as the first priority.
Union members and senior administrators who have voiced support for yet another round of school closures, despite four previous rounds in 2005, 2010, 2018, and 2019 failing to generate meaningful savings, appear unconcerned about the disruption these closures would cause for students and families. The current proposal resembles a social-engineering experiment designed to benefit certain politically favored schools and increase segregation and socioeconomic isolation within PUSD.
As educators and, in many cases, as parents themselves, one might expect them to place student welfare first and oppose any policy that increases segregation. Instead, they seem unconcerned that many families from closed schools may leave PUSD rather than attend lower-performing schools. Such departures would further reduce enrollment, leading to additional teaching-job losses and increased enrollment in non-union charter and private schools.
Why? Because the incentives facing senior administrators and union members, many of whom are protected from layoffs by seniority rules, do not necessarily align with the interests of the families whose schools may be closed. In practice, the interests of employees and administrators often appear to take precedence over the needs of families who want schools they are eager to attend, over higher academic achievement, and over preserving enrollment and jobs in PUSD. Many already send their own children to charter or private schools, making the consequences of these decisions less personal for them than they are for affected families.
The majority of the PUSD Board —whose members are favored by these groups and receive the political support of these groups during campaigns—has advanced a policy agenda that aligns closely with the priorities of these groups. School closures are viewed as a means of freeing up resources, and supporters hope those resources can eventually be directed toward compensation, programs, and other institutional priorities favored by these groups. If that is the case, it would also help explain why union leaders have not criticized what many view as improper actions by the PUSD Board.
And for those who criticize parents for becoming “political” by pursuing recalls after losing trust in the PUSD Board, it is worth noting that actions taken primarily to benefit organized interests are themselves political. Given the organized money and institutional power involved, they may be even more political than the efforts of concerned parents.
Over time, I have realized that the issue is not whether these individuals are good people or bad people. The issue is that the incentives in local politics increasingly reward elected officials for satisfying organized interests that fund campaigns and mobilize voters, even when those interests diverge from the needs of students, families, and the broader public.
The board has now responded to concerns about the process and halted it. If the process resumes, academic performance should be included in the equity-impact metrics rather than excluded based on what many believe was a misinterpretation of another district’s experience with school closures. Doing so would give higher-performing schools the consideration they lacked in the now-discredited process.
The City
The recent Pasadena City Council campaign highlighted the financial influence of police, fire, and building-trades unions. That influence helps explain why the City Council routinely approves utility-rate increases and why City unions rarely criticize them.
The political incentives point in the same direction: utility-rate increases generate revenue that helps fund employee compensation and pensions, while the unions that benefit from those decisions are among the most influential participants in local elections.
The result is that the interests of organized employee groups often receive greater attention than the public’s interest in affordable utility bills. One reason the previous mayor lost reelection to the current mayor, who received substantial union support, was that the former mayor publicly discussed the unions’ continual demands for additional funding.
A recent City Council committee meeting offered another example. Pasadena Water and Power presented a budget that included five new highly compensated positions in the water department. City Council members raised little objection, despite declining water usage among residents and despite the fact that recent rate increases will help fund these positions. The new hires may make life easier for senior managers, but affordable water rates for residents seem to be a lower priority.
Where are the budget reductions that would help restrain future rate increases and reflect declining water consumption? Instead, PW&P is expanding its workforce.
Sadly, school staff, city staff, and much of the broader community rarely discuss what sacrifices or reforms they themselves might undertake, as I suggested in a column last fall. Instead, the burden is often shifted onto the public.
As the old saying goes, “Follow the money.” The unions fund campaigns, elected officials often advance policies favored by those unions, and those same unions rarely criticize officials they support and also rarely place the needs of the public first.
Walt Beckett is a retired academic living in the San Gabriel Valley.
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