PSEA Spokesman Wins the Pinocchio Award

Readers of PolicyBlog already know that Pennsylvania education spending is at a record high, that state funding to school districts for pension costs is skyrocketing, and that school district spending, revenues and reserve funds are at all-time highs.

That should be enough to stop government union leaders from repeating the $1 billion cut lie…but they’re still at it. In fact, a new lie to defend the original lie has emerged.

Talking to Capitolwire (paywall), PSEA spokesman Wythe Keever claims, “No previous administration cited pension funding in order to boost their claims about K-12 funding.” 

Lie! “School employees’ retirement” has been counted as “Basic Education” by governors Rendell, Schweiker, Ridge, and Casey.

It is preposterous to think that the cost of teachers’ pensions isn’t part of the cost of education, or that state aid to school districts for pension costs isn’t part of state aid to school districts.

State Education Subsidy 2-Color

Of course, this is far from the first lie Wythe Keever has been caught in.

As we recently wrote, Mr. Keever has denied that union dues are used for any sort of political activity—even as his employer, the PSEA, told its members (as required by law) that 12 percent of their dues go to politics.

Wythe Keever also once denied to a reporter that the PSEA was behind mysterious ads claiming school choice would require a tax hike. We later uncovered that the PSEA spent $575,000 from union dues to fund those ads.

That a spokeman for PSEA consistently resorts to outright, provable lies is a telling commentary on how far government union executives are willing to go to advance their policy agenda.