Add this story to the file of union policies that are good for adults and not in the best interest of children.
In Buffalo, N.Y., the local education union has secured a compensation package that allows all of its teachers to get free plastic surgery as part of their contract. CNN reports:
As thousands of teachers face layoffs across the country, teachers in Buffalo, New York, are getting lipo? Yep. And nose jobs and whatever else they want. All on the taxpayers’ dime. How is this happening?
Dr. Kulwant Bhangoo has been a plastic surgeon in Buffalo for almost four decades. He says, “I feel the teachers have paid their dues, and it would be wrong to take it away from them.” Bhangoo has a large number of customers who are Buffalo teachers and says he advertises his services in the teachers union’s newsletter along with other prominent area plastic surgeons. Buffalo firefighters and police have a similar policy in their union contracts.
The Buffalo Board of Education, headed by Louis Petrucci, has stated that the school system spent $5.9 million on plastic surgery last year and is running a $42 million deficit for the next fiscal year. Worse still, three out of four Buffalo schools are on administrative watch for poor performance.
The complimentary plastic surgery perk is not a new benefit, either. Union head Phillip Rumore says the policy had been on the books since the Nixon Administration. But with taxpayers across the country demanding more fiscal austerity at all levels, Rumore has said that his union will agree to come to the table and take a scalpel to its plush plastic surgery perks.
Evan Walter is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm
