House GOP panel accuses nation’s largest teachers union of exploiting members’ retirement benefits

Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee are investigating the National Education Association for steering public school teachers to purchase retirement benefits that enriched the union.

Committee Chairman Tim Walberg of Michigan and committee members Rick Allen of Georgia, Kevin Kiley of California and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina shared a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that showed retirement services provider Security Benefit paid the nation’s largest teachers’ union a $4 million annual “base fee” for the exclusive right to sell annuities and mutual funds to teachers in 2023-24.

They noted that Department of Labor reports show the NEA receiving more than $61 million in “service level agreement” or “advertising revenue” since 2005, even as the union maintains in its 2024 SEC filing that it received “no dividends, royalties, profit, or licensing fees” from Security Benefit.

“The Committee is conducting this investigation to understand the extent to which such activity is compromising the integrity of union workers’ retirements and the need for making reforms to labor standards and retirement law,” the four lawmakers wrote Monday to NEA President Becky Pringle in a letter obtained by The Washington Times.

In an emailed statement, Mr. Walberg said the investigation seeks to remind the NEA of its “responsibility to protect the best interests of their members.”

“Unfortunately, we’ve seen the NEA repeatedly disregard the interests and concerns of their own members to enrich union leaders or promote political agendas that do nothing to help America’s teachers and students,” he said. “It is unacceptable that America’s largest teachers union is choosing to enrich itself at its own members’ expense.”

Republican committee members Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, Burgess Owens of Utah, Mary Miller of Illinois, Robert Onder of Missouri, Michael Baumgartner of Washington, Mark Harris of North Carolina and Randy Fine of Florida also signed the letter.

The NEA and Security Benefit, a Topeka, Kansas-based company, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the committee’s ranking Democrat, did not respond to an email.

According to NEA Member Benefits, a union subsidiary that manages teacher retirement plans, Security Benefit has also provided corporate sponsorship for an annual gala.

“Security Benefit has been NEA Member Benefits’ partner for the NEA Retirement Program since 2000, working to help NEA members achieve a secure retirement,” reads a statement on the Member Benefits website.

According to the latest federal records, NEA Member Benefits reported a value of more than $46.5 million in fiscal 2020.

“Security Benefit pays an annual fee to MB based in part on the average assets invested in the NEA Valuebuilder products under the agreement,” reads a statement posted on the company’s website.

In their letter, the four House Republicans also questioned the NEA retirement program’s payments of up to $10,000 a year to state education associations that adopted “endorsed products” from Security Benefit.

“Taken together, the NEA’s equity stake and the more than $61 million in ’Other Receipts’ compel scrutiny of whether the NEA is using NEA MB as a revenue conduit at the expense of teachers’ and other union members’ retirement security,” the lawmakers wrote.

Several retired NEA members reached for comment said they knew nothing about Security Benefit paying the union to market its products.

“I haven’t heard anything about it,” said Sue Halverson, 76, a lifetime NEA member and former middle school special education teacher in Minnesota. She retired in 2015.

Jeralee Smith, a retired NEA member and former California special education teacher, said she lost faith in union leaders’ financial explanations after watching them “frighten teachers” into paying dues for decades.

“I’ve watched them spin a lot of little tales that proved not to be accurate,” said Ms. Smith, 76, who stopped teaching in 2010.

Another reason for skepticism is the union’s record of heavy political spending on Democrats while claiming political neutrality, said Judy Bruns, a former national delegate to the NEA annual assembly who taught high school English in west-central Ohio.

“They are not spending money in a way that represents their membership,” said Ms. Bruns, 76, who retired in 2011.

According to Gregory Quinlan, president of the conservative Center for Garden State Families in New Jersey, the GOP investigation confirms that the NEA is scrambling for revenue as burnout drives teachers to quit or retire more quickly than in the past.

“Now, it appears, they’re eyeing teachers’ retirement funds as their next piggy bank,” Mr. Quinlan said in an email. “Sacrificing the future security of hardworking educators just to keep the bloated salaries of union executives and their political operatives intact.”