{"id":148598,"date":"2025-08-10T14:10:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T19:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldtribune.com\/?p=148598"},"modified":"2025-08-10T14:10:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T19:10:24","slug":"congress-investigating-teachers-union-over-luxury-travel-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/congress-investigating-teachers-union-over-luxury-travel-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress investigating teachers’ union over luxury travel spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

by<\/em><\/span> WorldTribune<\/strong> Staff<\/em><\/span><\/span>, August 10, 2025 <\/em>Real World News<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Top officials at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), who are paid many times more than the average dues-paying teacher in the union, are under investigation for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury travel.<\/p>\n

\"\"
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The House Education and Workforce Committee on Thursday reported that it sent a letter to AFT President Randi Weingarten demanding answers and accountability after details surfaced regarding union officials spending more than $100,000 on limousine services<\/p>\n

The letter<\/a>, from Education and Workforce Chairman Tim Walberg and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman Rick Allen demands details from Weingarten:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf substantiated, these allegations reveal a troubling lack of accountability within AFT leadership,\u201d reads the letter. Federal law requires Weingarten to \u201cmanage the union\u2019s expenses solely for the benefit of AFT and its members.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter continues:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe magnitude of recent AFT officer reimbursements raises questions about the adequacy of your current treasury oversight practices. AFT\u2019s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Form LM-2 shows that you received $42,105 in additional disbursements on top of your $457,769 gross salary (which, notably, is more than six times the average teacher salary of $72,030).<\/p>\n

\u201cCommittee sources allege that part of your reimbursements covered personal international travel unrelated to AFT business and that union funds were used to provide you with a full-time private driver. AFT\u2019s LM-2 filings also list disbursements to Alpine Limousine Service, Inc., with payments totaling over $100,000 in each of the previous two fiscal years. \u2026 Using union funds to pay a luxury private limousine service suggests that AFT is financing personal conveniences for senior officers rather than using union funds appropriately.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeanwhile, Secretary-Treasurer Fedrick Ingram received a gross salary of $301,892 in FY 2024, plus an additional allowance of $76,200 in 2024 and in each of the previous three fiscal years. This regularity is unusual: every other officer or employee who received more than $5,000 in annual allowances saw their payments fluctuate from year to year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Caller reported that lawmakers have also received reports from unnamed sources that Weingarten has paid for other conveniences such as a private driver. The influential union boss previously drew criticism by advocating for schools to stay closed during the Covid pandemic despite data showing such restrictions were pointless.<\/p>\n

\n

Support<\/span><\/a> Free Press Foundation<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by WorldTribune Staff, August 10, 2025 Real World News Top officials at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), who are paid many times more than the average dues-paying teacher in the union, are under investigation for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury travel. The House Education and Workforce Committee on Thursday reported that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":148599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,35,12,5],"tags":[362,6],"class_list":["post-148598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusives","category-top-stories","category-u-s","category-world-links","category-world-tribune","tag-congress-investigating-teachers-union-over-luxury-travel-spending","tag-worldtribune-com","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}