Hogs At The Trough

Regarding "4 to get year’s salary in HISD deal" (Thursday City & State), HISD leaders awarding four teachers guilty of cheating a cushy severance package ought to be offensive not just to taxpayers, but all concerned citizens.  These teachers had no right to the money, their union had no right to pursue it, and HISD had no right to squander the yearly tax contribution of at least 50 households to make these cheaters go away.

 

What is most distressing about this whole sorry affair is the deafening silence of the remaining 12,000-plus teachers and school administrators responsible not just for teaching Houston's children, but for their right conduct.  What kind of message is conveyed to our students when the people entrusted with their education refuse to speak against such behavior?  

 

Sadly, this incident is not isolated; there have been numerous other similar stories of cushy payoffs for public employees that they didn't deserve, including gigantic payouts across the spectrum of public employment for accumulation of supposedly unused vacation and sick time, bonuses to incent teachers to quit, and most recently, the HFD union demanding a fat new contract just to get fireman to show up in sufficient numbers to provide a bare minimum of coverage.  And let us not forget the grand-daddy of all public sector pay scams: the insane inflation of pension benefits perpetrated, not coincidentally, by the fraudulent representations of union retirement boards that will eventually bankrupt the city of Houston.

 

It's bad enough that public employee unions care not a whit about the citizens they fleece for their sumptuous contracts, but it would be nice to hear public employees themselves occasionally speak out against the manifold abuses of the public purse on their behalf.  Their failure to do so serves only to further lower the bar as to what is unacceptable, and further emboldens their unions to make even more unconscionable contract demands in the future.

 

It's the least to be expected of people who wish to call themselves  - without irony - "public servants". 

 

Pete Smith

Houston, TX