We're suspicious that the motivation behind House Bill 381, which would prohibit school districts from continuing to pay teachers who take a leave to serve as president of a local teachers union, is to punish union leaders who worked to defeat the private-school voucher law in 2007. After all, Parents for Choice in Education, the force pushing vouchers, is behind the bill.

Nevertheless, it doesn't make sense to us that taxpayer education funds are going to pay people who no longer work for the school district, especially when budget cuts are forcing public schools to consider laying off teachers and cutting days off the school calendar.

Granted, Utah Education Association leaders work closely with schools and teachers and sometimes even serve as mentors, but that's not the same as being a full-time, or even a part-time, teacher or working directly with students in some other capacity.

In Davis, Granite and Salt Lake districts, local UEA presidents, who are usually former teachers granted leave to work for the association, are paid between $24,000 and $28,000 a year in salary and benefits from district funds. The union picks up the rest. Other local presidents have different contract deals; current law leaves it up to individual districts. And it specifies that each district should cough up cash only when the paid association leave "directly benefits education within the district." But what does it mean to "directly benefit education"?

It has evolved to mean, in practice, that some districts continue to fork out hefty amounts to pay people who are no longer working strictly for the district. In fact, in union parlance, these UEA officials are being paid by the employer, the opponent in contract negotiations. It's like having one foot on the ground and the other on a moving train.

In Utah, education unions don't play the same role as unions that represent auto company employees or the groups that represent longshoremen, air traffic controllers or truckers. Still, a UEA president who is a teacher on leave from the district should only be paid by the district for specific jobs he or she does, not a blanket sum that comprises more than half the individual's salary, not to mention the state employee benefit package.

In these tight times, every penny counts. And there is some symbolism involved. Taxpayers don't like the idea of paying a teacher for not teaching, and there's no reason they should.