The new president of a small but powerful union that represents more than 30,000 school teachers in Wisconsin has been forced to step down after the organization’s president accused her of making $2.7 million off students.
A day after the Wisconsin State Journal published the story, Kathleen M. Bynum, the executive director of the Wisconsin Teachers Federation, resigned in protest, saying the union’s president had made her $2,719 per week for nine months.
The union represents more then 30,00 school teachers, including about a dozen principals.
Bylum resigned Monday amid a dispute with the union, which has been a thorn in the side of the new administration of President Scott Walker.
Bynum was the president of the union for three years and oversaw a $2 billion-plus surplus at the state’s public schools, which were underfunded when Walker took office in 2011.
The surplus helped fund a $1 billion increase in spending on school supplies and equipment that Walker has promised to balance this year.
But in an interview Monday with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Bynampos accusations against M.C. Murnin, the president, came across as vindictive and unprofessional.
Byrnum’s comments came in a report on a state audit that showed Murnins salary was $3,600 per week, $2 per hour less than her previous employer, a large public school.
Brynum told the Wisconsin Journal the union made money from “students’ work.”
She said that Murnis salary is “unrealistic.”
Bynampas resignation comes amid a series of other incidents of mismanagement by Walker, including the $1.8 million in fines the governor was slapped with for misusing state money for his political campaigns.