One thing is clear when you look at the American Federation of Teachers’ financial filings: It rarely spends money without an ulterior motive. Even as younger members demand that the AFT become more like a professional association focused on elevating the profession, the union continues to focus on bolstering its declining influence and even expanding its reach. This can easily be seen in Texas, where the nation’s second largest teachers’ union is spending plenty to oppose the state’s overhaul of teacher evaluations and gain new members at the expense of the National Education Association’s affiliate there.

These days, as the 2013-2014 financial disclosure to the U.S. Department of Labor reveals, the AFT is becoming an active force in the Lone Star face. In May, its Houston local filed suit against the traditional district to end its use of test score growth data in teacher evaluations. As far as the union is concerned, the Houston Independent School District’s use of Value Added Measurement violates the due process of their rank-and-file under the U.S. Constitution*, and thus, their ability to keep their continuing contracts (also known as near-lifetime employment or tenure around these parts). If the suit is successful, the AFT could end up filing suits against similar evaluations across the country.

Meanwhile in Austin, the AFT and its Lone Star State affiliate, AFT Texas, fought hard earlier this year to oppose the state’s overhaul of teacher evaluations. From where the union sits, the state’s move to require test score growth data for 20 percent of an overall evaluation under the new regimen is illegal under state law. [The fact that observations still constitute 70 percent of the evaluation while teachers get to game the measure thanks to a self-evaluation, all rendering the performance management tool absolutely useless, doesn’t factor into their thinking.] While the AFT and other traditionalists didn’t succeed in halting the state’s effort — which is now being reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the state’s No Child waiver request — expect them to work hard within districts (which are forced to “conference”, also known as bargain, with NEA and AFT locals) to weaken implementation.

Meanwhile the AFT is looking at Texas as a bellwether of things to come across the nation. The union is likely heartened by the Lone Star State legislature’s passage last year of House Bill 5, which scaled back the battery of standardized tests and effectively weakened accountability. AFT Texas supported the bill’s passage. There’s also August’s ruling in Texas Taxpayer & Student Fairness Coalition et. al. v. Williams, in which a judge determined that the state’s school funding formula was neither adequate or equitable. The possibility of districts gaining more money means higher salaries for the AFT’s rank-and-file, and thus, more money into its coffers through the dues it often forcibly collects.

With Latinos and other minorities becoming the majority of the state’s population (and already the majority of public school enrollment), the AFT is also betting that the Lone Star State will go from being a conservative and Republican bastion to a stronghold for Democrats and progressives, the latter of which the union has long ago co-opted. It is one reason why AFT Texas took the time this year to endorse Wendy Davis, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee whose already-sluggish run for the top office took another hit last week after unveiling an ad featuring an empty wheelchair that offended the disabled as well as Republicans.

But for the AFT, spending time on Texas isn’t just about principle. It’s also a growth opportunity. Even as the NEA’s Texas unit, the Texas State Teachers Association, has seen membership decline by 3.4 percent between 2009-2010 and 2012-2013, AFT Texas increased membership by 14 percent. This growth is occurring even as the AFT’s Houston local has seen membership declines. With 40,000 rank-and-filers, AFT Texas is nearly as formidable as the rival TSTA, at least in terms of bodies. [Both are still slightly smaller than the 50,000-member Texas Classroom Teachers Association.] The fact that there are 320,000 teachers, many of whom the AFT can try to unionize, is also appealing.

But like TSTA (which has ran deficits for two straight years), the AFT unit is also struggling financially. It generated a deficit of $309,204 in 2013-2014 on $5.9 million in revenue. Since the affiliate also generates half the revenue its NEA rival does, it needs all the help national can provide.

So the AFT is pouring money into Texas. It has directly subsidized AFT Texas (including its solidarity fund) to the tune of $1 million in 2013-2014. That’s a 23 percent increase over what it spent in the previous year. But that’s not the biggest dollars the union has poured into Texas. The AFT has devoted even more money to the affiliate’s Professional Educator Group, which serves to funnel money ($12 per member a year) into its political action committee. AFT poured $2.9 million into the PEG last fiscal year. This is on top of the $4.5 million poured into it by national in 2012-2013. Altogether, the AFT poured $3.9 million into its Lone Star State unit and its operations in 2013-2014, and has poured $9.3 million into the affiliate’s operations over the past two years, making the Texas effort one of the biggest stands against systemic reform for the union.  Not one dollar, by the way, has likely gone to helping teachers improve their classroom instruction or elevate the profession.

But AFT spending in Texas isn’t just limited to the affiliate alone. It poured $100,000 into the PAC run by its Texas Organizing Project, put $21,840 into its Southwest and Mountain States regional office, and devoted $24,453 to the office’s Houston Organizing Project. The Houston local picked up $20,616 from national while the San Antonio affiliate garnered $62,790. It also spent plenty on meetings there. This included $20,372 for a Martin Luther King Day meeting at the Wyndham San Antonio Riverwalk Hotel, $32,921 at the Doubletree Houston-Greenway Plaza for “member related services”, and $6,608 at the Embassy Suites Downtown in Austin for another meeting.

Then there’s the money AFT gave to groups and individuals aligned with its interests. This included $30,000 to the Texas Future Project, an effort run by the secretive Democracy Alliance; AFT President Randi Weingarten is a key player within the group, but, like Fight Club, the first rule of Democracy Alliance is that you can’t talk about it. The AFT also paid $82,498 to Ross Fitzgerald, who used to work for the now-defunct ACORN’s Community Labor Organizing Center, for his “member related services”, and gave $5,000 to grassroots outfit Dallas Area Interfaith.

Will any of this spending help the AFT preserve its declining influence for the long haul? Probably not. Based on the ruling in the Harris decision handed down in June, the AFT may not even be able to keep forcing teachers to pay dues for long. But for now, the spending is the AFT’s stand at the Alamo, a fight to preserve the clout it has left.

*Updated to clarify due process rights being discussed in the AFT’s Houston lawsuit.

Last week, Dropout Nation perused the American Federation of Teachers’ 2013-2014 financial filing with the U.S. Department of Labor and have revealed the millions the union is spending on preserving its influence as well as in opposing systemic reform. As you would expect, traditionalists, along with AFT President Rhonda (Randi) Weingarten, attempted to disregard what is clear from the data; Weingarten herself even tried to argue that she didn’t earn $557,875 last fiscal year. But again, this isn’t shocking; Weingarten even tries to claim that she is a veteran teacher even though she only spent 10 months on the job (over a period of a six years as a part-timer) before becoming an AFT executive.

But as your editor has consistently pointed out, the AFT spends big to oppose systemic reform. Especially when those efforts will cost it both money and influence. And this can be seen today in Philadelphia, where the union’s Philadelphia and Pennsylvania units are battling against efforts to address the decades of dealmaking with the City of Brotherly Love’s district at the heart of its fiscal morass.

Earlier today, the AFT and its Pennsylvania affiliate fired off a press release blasting the School District of Philadelphia and the state commission that controls it for having “amped up a war on teachers”. How? By moving to cancel the collective bargaining agreement the district has with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the AFT’s unit there, and reducing the generous healthcare benefits it provides to the union’s rank-and-file. Though the contract has been expired since last year — and the district has had free rein (as it can given the Keystone State’s restrictive state laws governing most aspects of how it manages its teachers) to do what it must to address its woes — PFT and its parent union insist that the deal remains in force. This includes basing layoffs on matters other than seniority as normally required under state law.

Thanks to move, Philadelphia will continue with a series of efforts that began last year with a move to effectively end near-lifetime employment for teachers in the district’s employ. The move would also allow the district to deal with its high teacher benefit costs. Thanks to a series of deals Philadelphia struck with the AFT local, along with increases in pension contributions, led to a 53 percent increase in spending on teachers’ benefits between 2002-2002 and 2011-2012, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau; benefits accounted for 27 cents of every dollar spent on teacher salaries in 2012, versus 21 cents a decade earlier. The district estimates that the cost-cutting will save it $246 million (including federal funds) over the next four years.

Given that Philadelphia has also been on a capital spending spree that has denied the reality that fewer kids are attending its school (as well as engaging in senseless financial engineering through the use of interest rate swaps related to its building boom), just focusing on teacher benefit costs isn’t enough. But considering that the AFT has also been an obstacle to the district’s efforts to provide high-quality education to kids in its care, canceling the collective bargaining doesn’t hurt. It even puts the onus on the district to actually address its fiscal and academic woes without being able to blame AFT intransigence.

But what may be good for Philadelphia (and for taxpayers and children) isn’t exactly welcomed by the AFT. After all, any cuts in healthcare benefits (or requirements for teachers to contribute more to those costs) strike at the heart of the grand bargain struck decades ago by the union with its rank-and-file members to insulate them from the arrangements typically found in the private sector. It’s hard for PFT, much less AFT, to justify forcibly collecting dues from teachers when it offers nothing to them. And given the district’s move last year to shut down 23 half-empty schools, as well as the layoff of 2,151 employees, PFT has fewer dues-paying members on the roster. The AFT local had 27,543 rank-and-file members in 2013-2014, eight percent fewer than in the previous fiscal year.

So the AFT is spending big to help its local out. It subsidized PFT to the tune of $1.5 million in 2013-2014; that’s a 10-fold increase from the $140,392 the union handed out to the unit in the previous year. Given that the PFT only generated $2.4 million in 2013-2014, the AFT’s subsidies are especially helpful for the local’s efforts to beat back the district’s moves. The AFT is also spending heavily on events in the city geared toward defending the local’s influence and coffers. This includes holding three meetings (including two so-called community events) at the ritzy Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown at the cost of $142,129 as well as dropping $272,715 at the rather nice Sonesta Philadelphia hotel to cover “member related expenses”.

Meanwhile the AFT is helping out PFT in another way: Co-opting progressive groups who are aiding the union in beating back reform. As Dropout Nation reported last week, the AFT poured $49,120 to ACTION United, the so-called grassroots group in Philadelphia which has served as an ally of its Philadelphia local in its efforts against the financially-strapped district to keep it from closing half-empty schools and overhaul how it compensates teachers. The union also contributed $20,000 to Philadelphia Student Union, whose board includes Anissa Weinraub, a PFT union leader, as well as Phil Wider of the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative, a signatory on an AFT statement issued as part of its Reclaim the Promise effort to defend the traditionalist policies that sustain it.

The AFT also contributed $60,000 to Youth United for Change, another ally of the union’s Philadelphia local in opposing reform efforts in the city. Two years ago, it teamed up with the Philadelphia Student Union on a joint letter opposing one of the district’s stillborn plans to overhaul its operations. The group also managed to get Weingarten to grace them with her presence at an awards ceremony it hosted last year.

Altogether, the AFT spent $2 million in 2013-2014 on preserving its declining influence in Philadelphia. That would be a really nice shopping trip at the old Wanamaker department store (now Macy’s) in the heart of the city’s downtown. To put this into perspective: The union poured just as much money into opposing reform-minded governors and efforts in several Midwestern states, while spending considerably less than that in Chicago (where it can count on its notoriously-bellicose local there to do the heavy lifting).

Based on the Philadelphia district’s move today — along with the decision by the city council last month to reject PFT’s effort to place a question on November’s ballot asking for support to end the state’s control of the district — the AFT would have been better off spending that money elsewhere. Particularly for teachers forced to pay into the union’s coffers, that’s $2 million that wasn’t used to provide them with courses on using data in improving student achievement. For the teaching profession the AFT claims devotion, that’s $2 million not used for for launching an alternative teacher preparation program that could bring talented collegians and mid-career professionals into teaching. And for kids, that’s $2 milllion that doesn’t help them in any way whatsoever.

But the AFT’s efforts in the Keystone State aren’t limited to the Philadelphia alone. There’s also the rest of the state, especially the state capital of Harrisburg, where the union’s affiliate, AFT Pennsylvania, has been battling Gov. Tom Corbett’s oft-unsuccessful (and usually lackluster) efforts on the reform front. This includes his push to expand school choice as well as the now-stillborn plan to address the School Employees’ Retirement System’s virtual insolvency of $37 billion (or 27 percent more than the pension officially reports).

The AFT subsidized the Keystone State unit (including its solidarity fund) to the tune of $499,661 in 2013-2014, $42,074 more than in the previous fiscal year. Given Corbett’s struggles to get his fellow Republicans controlling the Keystone State legislature to back his reform efforts, you can say that this was money well spent for its goals of keeping itself in business. For high-quality teachers and kids? Not so much.

So when AFT officials argue that they don’t have the money needed to challenge reformers and are devoted to helping kids succeed, point to what it is doing in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Because they aren’t admitting reality.

AFT President Randi Weingarten and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers boss Jerry Jordan. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

One of the most-hotly debated questions is how strong is the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers compared to the school reform movement. When it comes to the money that is key to political influence, there is no doubt: The NEA and AFT together spend roughly $700 million per year, consistently, on a broad spectrum of political communication activities opposed to reform. This means that the financial (and political) muscle of the two unions is far greater than that of school reform organizations such as Democrats for Education Reform, StudentsFirst (for which I used to work), Stand for Children, Black Alliance for Educational Options, and the American Federation for Children.

To understand the unions’ advantages, start with the AFT and NEA national budgets. The AFT has 1.6 million members and generated $233 million in revenue (net of borrowing) as of 2013-2014, according to this week’s Dropout Nation analysis of financial data; the NEA had 3.1 million members and national revenues of $387 million in 2012-2013. This total is only the beginning. Although teachers have “unitary dues” where they pay once for national, state, and local affiliates, the state and local portions of the bill vary greatly and can be quite significant. In the state of New Jersey, for instance, compulsory dues come to $936 per teacher, less than $200 of which go to national. In Chicago, the compulsory dues that the AFT’s Chicago Teachers Union deducts from paychecks amount to $1,060 per teacher a year, several hundred dollars more than go to Illinois and national combined. Average dues of nearly $1,000 per year appear quite common.

The volume and reporting diversity of state and local filings makes a comprehensive assessment difficult. Indeed, the unions’ financial heft deters consultants from even trying, as no one wants to be blacklisted from future union contracts. In exchange for their confidentiality, I engaged a team of consultants on behalf to work for several weeks pro bono in combing through various national, state, and local disclosure documents. These consultants concluded that the combined budgets amount to $2.2 billion per year, of which roughly $1.6 billion comes indirectly from taxpayers through compulsory paycheck deductions. This estimate is consistent with the state-by-state research published two years ago by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

While not all of the $2.2 billion is used for politics, the sums available for pure politics are massive. When vouchers were proposed by ballot initiative in California in 1993, for instance, unions were able to deploy $30 million in today’s dollars to defeat the initiative. As Dropout Nation and others have consistently shown, the AFT and NEA are among the largest ongoing contributors to politics, consistently increasing their donations even as their respective memberships among those in K-12 are in decline.

More importantly, the narrow definition of “political” dollars is almost meaningless. Officially non-political dollars, such as “member communications” and related employee time, frequently get used for grassroots lobbying of union members. It is rare to read an NEA or AFT mailer or attend any teachers’ union event that does not rebroadcast the union leaders’ political messages. This financial freedom to disseminate messages to teachers and their allies, dovetailing with the smothering of pro-reform voices within the union, means that teaching is presented as a monolithic bloc opposed to reform. Electorally and politically, this is especially powerful because teachers are one of the nation’s most highly-respected professions. So the NEA and AFT exploit this esteem in their voter canvassing work.

As Dropout Nation detailed in this week’s review of the AFT’s finances (as well as in analysis of the NEA’s spending), another way that nonpolitical dollars become political is when unions pass along millions in taxpayer-funded dues to organizations, from civil rights groups to feminist groups, so as to enlist future loyalty. While officially non-political, these distributions generate political payoffs when those other groups join the unions in marches, lawsuits, and hard-dollar fundraising drives.

So how much, exactly, of the $2.2 billion go to political communications of these various sorts? Unfortunately, the unions themselves are responsible for reporting and enforcing the boundary between political and non-political, and a recent history of settlements for electoral violations and court defeats shows they are willing to blur that line. Sources I interviewed estimated that unions spend roughly one third of their total resources on broadly defined political communications, including grassroots lobbying and organizing around content. This is consistent with union observer Mike Antonucci’s estimate that the NEA alone spends a bit under $450 million annually on politics; if you scale that up on a pro-rata basis by the AFT’s budget, the combined total would be over $700 million annually in political expenditures.

Crucially, this $700 million gets spent reliably every year. That allows investments in infrastructure, rapid response operations, staff talent development, and long-term political relationships. Politicians taking a long-term view of their careers can trust that the union dollars will be there year after year. Newspapers considering editorial decisions know that union advertisers are reliable customers.

Union apologists such as Diane Ravitch suggest that this $700 million political budget merely offsets the wealth deployed by “corporate-style reformers” to achieve change. This claim is patently false. The math on compulsory dues is straightforward: millions of members, paying nearly a thousand dollars per year in dues, generate billions in revenue.

Consider the Walton family, education’s most prominent reform philanthropists. The $63 million they spent on supporting education reform in 2013 is less than one-tenth of the dollars spent by NEA and AFT in a given year. The Gates Foundation is larger, but gives even less to education, because most of its grants go overseas to issues such as fighting malaria. And even within education, Gates Foundation grants often go to the NEA and AFT themselves as well as to traditional districts. It is unclear whether their contributions to reformers are even net positive. Meanwhile other reformers focus on other issues beyond education. Reform organizations have improved their fundraising in the past few years, and have been able to sustain some pressure on the unions as a result. But the combined annual budgets of school reform advocates still amount to only a fraction of the Big Two teachers’ unions.

As if all that were not enough, unions have an ace up their sleeve: Their sway over school districts. Thanks to low turnouts in school district elections, unions essentially elect school board officials, who in turn, appoint superintendents who then select principals. Even when teachers face a pro-reform superintendent, they can thwart reform. Consider the admission by Michael Mulgrew, the president of the AFT’s United Federation of Teachers in New York City that he deliberately “ ‘gummed up’ the implementation of teacher evaluations last year during negotiations with the prior Bloomberg administration.” By controlling districts, schools, and classrooms, union leaders can block or even sabotage reforms that they do not like.

School reformers (and everyone else) must realize that they will need to redouble their investments of time and money in order to play on a level playing field with the NEA and the AFT.

Yesterday, Dropout Nation reported on the American Federation of Teachers’ latest LM-2 financial disclosure to the U.S. Department of Labor, and how it spent $29 million in 2013-2014 to preserve its declining influence. But as your editor noted back in July and in a Rare column that ran last week, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union is spending plenty to expand beyond serving elementary and secondary school teachers. This can be seen in its spending this time around.

In Washington State, the AFT spent $504,759 on helping its affiliate organize teachers working in early childhood education programs. The work in the Evergreen State is one part of the union’s effort to become the dominant agent for teachers working in prekindergarten programs that are now the darling of both Republican and Democrat politicians. Altogether, the union has spent $709,647 since 2009-2010 in the state..  This includes teaming up with the Service Employees International Union in Seattle to launch a ballot initiative that would require childcare centers contracting with the city to pay a $15 minimum hourly wage to its workers — or $1.05 more than the average hourly wage currently earned by preschool teachers there. Altogether, the union has spent $709,647 since 2009-2010 in the state.

Another place where the AFT is looking to organize early ed teachers in New Mexico. The union directly spent $279,809 on the preschool teacher organizing project headed up by its Land of Enchantment affiliate. Altogether, the AFT has spent $1 million in New Mexico since 2010, making the state the biggest play for the AFT’s efforts. Meanwhile in Florida, the AFT spent $50,686 to bring early childhood education teachers into its fold.

The AFT is also spending big on organizing efforts — as well as opposing reform — throughout the nation.

One of the AFT’s key states for organizing is Louisiana, where the successful school reform efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina nine years ago have challenged traditionalist thinking. The union spent $432,393 last fiscal year on the joint organizing project it put together with United Teachers New Orleans, its Crescent City local. It also poured $40,542 into an organizing project in nearby Jefferson Parish as well as subsidized its local there to the tune of $20,237; the union also poured $8,338 into an organizing project in Caddo Parish, the final payoff for a successful effort to HB 609, a bill that would have allowed Louisiana to create new school districts, including one in Caddo Parish that would have allowed some families to escape the low-performing traditional district. The AFT put $29,247 into an organizing project in East Baton Rouge as well.

Meanwhile the AFT subsidized the efforts of its Louisiana affiliate to the tune of $532,825 in 2013-2014; it also spent $6,406 in advertising with the publisher of Louisiana Weekly as part of the union’s Reclaim the Promise initiative. Expect the AFT to pour even more money into Louisiana in 2015 as both the Bayou State’s elections and the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina will give the union opportunities to attack efforts to expand choice and other reforms.

Then there’s the Midwestern states. Take Michigan, where the AFT and the NEA are both looking to end the tenure of Gov. Rick Snyder, who successfully passed a series of measures that have weakened the ability of the two unions to force districts into collective bargaining. The AFT poured $774,910 into its Wolverine State affiliate, and another $130,905 into its so-called solidarity fund. There’s also Wisconsin, whose governor, Scott Walker, is being targeted by the AFT and other public-sector unions for successfully abolishing collective bargaining and forced dues collections. The union poured $73,854 into Recommit Wisconsin, and put $56,539 into the coffers of its Wisconsin Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals unit to expand the ranks of nurses now in the national union’s fold as well as to take on Walker.

As for the Wisconsin affiliate (which is now merging with the NEA’s Badger State affiliate after losing 63 percent of its members) since 2011? The AFT put $50,364 into its solidarity fund and another $20,240 into its political action committee. The AFT also tossed $5,000 to progressive group One Wisconsin Now, which is also targeting Walker along with other Republicans who have supported weakening teachers’ union influence. Then there is Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich, coasting into a re-election victory, is likely to push another effort to abolish collective bargaining and other reforms that will weaken the AFT and other public-sector unions. The AFT put $215,301 into its Buckeye State affiliate’s organizing project, tossed $66,565 in subsidies to the unit itself, and put $127,512 into its solidarity fund. The union also put $48,008 into political funds for two locals. Altogether, with the $19,505 spent on its Midwest project, and $384,250 into one focused on the Great Lakes region, the AFT has poured $2 million into organizing and fighting against reform in key Midwestern states.

Then there’s Chicago, where AFT President Randi Weingarten has already promised that the union will back Karen Lewis, the bellicose boss of its Chicago Teachers Union local, to the tune of $1 million if she decides to run against incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The AFT has put $205,444 into CTU itself, while pouring $130,000 into political action committee of its Cook County College unit. The AFT also donated $60,000 to the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, a community grassroots outfit that is advocating for the end of mayoral control of the Second City’s traditional district. Expect the AFT to spend even more in Chicago just to knock of Emanuel if Lewis decides to run.

The AFT also put $2.7 million into its Northeast Organizing Project. It also gave $50,000 to the Newark Teachers Union, its local in the New Jersey city as part of its “Locals in crisis” effort. The crisis, in this case, was to beat back reformers in the city at the ballot box, and the money was well spent; the local teamed up with others in the city to elect failed school principal Ras Baraka as Newark’s mayor over the reform-minded Shavar Jeffries. The AFT gave $38,015 to the Boston Teachers Union’s political action committee, which then helped elect union boss-turned-state representative Marty Walsh over reformer John Connolly last year.

The AFT is putting plenty of money behind Chicago local boss Karen Lewis’ efforts to end systemic reform in that city. It will likely even back her possible campaign to become Second City mayor.

Of course, the AFT’s efforts in New York State are among its most-important. The union poured $14 million into New York State United Teachers, the Empire State affiliate it largely controls (with the acquiescence of the National Education Association), as well as into its political action committee. This is a 17 percent increase over the subsidies the AFT poured into the unit in 2012-2013. With Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew, the head of the AFT’s Big Apple local, the United Federation of Teachers, having asserted control over NYSUT earlier this year through the ouster of Richard Ianuzzi as its president, expect NYSUT to toe national’s line when told.

Meanwhile the AFT also focused on Colorado, a state where reformers have some chance of gaining traction thanks to the floundering campaign of Democrats including Gov. John Hickenlooper (who will likely be repaid for his failures to aggressively advance reform by losing a run for a second term). There, the AFT poured $25,433 into the Colorado Organizing Project, while giving $95,347 to its state affiliate. The union also put $100,000 into Colorado Commits to Kids, which unsuccessfully pushed to pass Amendment 66, which would have increased income taxes (from 4.63 percent to as much as 5.9 percent for earners making more than $75,000 a year) for additional school funding. The AFT also gave $6,050 to Colorado WINS, the public-sector union consortium which succeeded in winning wage increases of as much as 4.4 percent for rank-and-file members.

Looking to weigh in on local races, the AFT gave $160,000 to Committee for Better Schools Now, an outfit which supported teachers’ union-friendly candidates in Douglas County, Colo., whose reform-oriented board majority has made waves by opening negotiations with unions to the public as well as voucherizing school funding. The group only succeeded in electing one of its four candidates for the district’s board, failing to beat back reformers.

Given that Weingarten has declared this week that the union will spend even more on political campaigns this election cycle, the spending on organizing and reform-opposing is no surprising at all. But it does take money — and the AFT spends a lot of it. The union generated $345 million in 2013-2014, a 7.5 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. This is the first time in a few years that the AFT has seen revenue increase. Forced dues collections in the form of a per-capita tax on members at the local level was $169 million, a 17 percent increase over the previous year.

Increases in dues payments are one likely reason for the growth in dues flowing into the union’s coffers. The other is the AFT’s aggressive effort to expand its membership, especially beyond education. Some 70,624 associate members were among the AFT’s rank-and-file, a 33 percent increase over 2012-2013; unlike traditional rank-and-file members, who first pay to their locals, and then to state and national, associate members pay directly to the union’s coffers to its benefit. The union also counted 331,260 retired teachers in its ranks in 2013-2014, a three percent increase over the previous year. The growth in the last group proves to be particularly beneficial politically for the Progressive and Unity caucuses, the two coalitions who have long controlled the AFT’s leadership because retirees are longtime members of both groups.

As for the rest of the membership: The AFT’s counts 713,320 full-time members, a slight decline over the 714,525 full-timers in the rank-and-file last year. As a result of the decline, along with the growth among retirees, associate members, and those outside of education, full-time teachers in the rank-and-file account for just 45 percent of the union’s 1.6 million members, a one percent decline over the previous years.

Meanwhile the AFT’s addiction to heavy borrowing to tide it over continues. The union borrowed $112 million in 2013-2014 through its line of credit with SunTrust; all of it was repaid. Over the past three years, the AFT has borrowed $317 million to finance its operations. Without the borrowing, the AFT generated $233 million in 2013-2014, a 14 percent increase over the previous year. Meanwhile the union’s obligations to retired staffers remained unchanged at $31 million.

You can check out the AFT’s latest financial disclosure yourself by checking out the HTML and PDF versions of the AFT’s latest financial report, or by visiting the Department of Labor’s Web site.