This Year's Dues

Hello friends,

I wanted to provide you with a breakdown of where your dues dollars go, by organization. The numbers below are for a full-time employee; if you're less than 1.0 fte and you want this analysis, please let me know and I'll get that for you ASAP!

NEA Dues: $178 a year, or $14.83 a month. This helps to support the work that goes on at the national level, as well as covering the costs associated with the liability insurance you have as an NEA member.

WEA Dues: $410 a year, or $34.17 a month. Your WEA dues pay for the staff in our Federal Way office that keep the organization running, as well as partly for the field staff around the state that are available for work issues.

UniServ Dues: $140.28 a year, or $11.69 a month. The UniServ is our WEA-Eastern office, and these dues support the staff there as well as the trainings that we attend regarding budgeting, grievances, and the like.

Local Dues: $60 a year, or $5 a month. If you've taken a look at the Association budget you know where this goes--our two biggest spending items are the scholarships that we offer every year and the stipends for building reps, the bargaining team, and the exec board.

If you add those all up you'll come up with $65.69 a month. Some of you may be paying more than that if you contribute to the WEA Political Action Committee ($2.25 a month, $27 a year) or the NEA Fund for Children ($1 a month, $12 a year). There's also an additional $1 a month for what's known as the Community Outreach fund, which is used to pay for grants to locals for projects in the community.

If you have questions about the money and where it goes, feel free to ask--you have the right, and the only way to keep a right healthy is to exercise it! :-)

With thanks,

--Ryan--