With the legislative session winding down, more than 700 NYSUT in-service and retired activists made a final push this month to educate lawmakers on the union's agenda, with special education, pensions and health care leading the discussion.

"This is an important visit," NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin told the union advocates gathered in Albany as part of the union's Committee of 100. "Lawmakers know our members are in every single ZIP code in the state. And they vote."

NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi told the unionists the lobby days are a crucial opportuntity to thank lawmakers for delivering record education aid increases, and to advocate for critical policy and benefit changes. "Sometimes we have to work very hard to stop bad policy," Iannuzzi said, referring to last-minute efforts by voucher advocates to win legislative support.

In office after office, rejecting changes to special ed and preserving health care benefits were high on the unionists' agenda. Special and general ed teachers spoke against destructive changes in special education.

States must conform by this summer with new regulations of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Among other changes, teachers could be excluded from meetings of the Committee on Special Education, which creates and monitors Individualized Education Programs for special ed students.

Joe Vernon, a special education teacher from the Hadley-Luzerne Teachers Association, told Sen. Betty Little,

R-Queensbury, that special ed students risk losing more than a voice at the table. "Sitting at CSE meetings myself, very often the parents are intimidated, some to the point where they don't come anymore," Vernon said.

Betsy Manzione, a special ed teacher for 25 years, is concerned students will lose important advocates. "I assess kids on a weekly basis. I know more about them than any administrator," said Manzione of the Arlington TA.

Union advocates continued their calls for rejecting plans of the Berger Commission, which could result in the removal of some hospitals from the State University of New York system. "It's unlawful - it's an illegal action," Raul Huerta, UUP Morrisville, told Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida.

Focus on retirement

NYSUT members urged lawmakers to make permanent a measure now approved annually that protects retirees' health insurance.

Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, relayed his support for the measure. "There are few if any people who haven't committed to making that a reality," he told unionists. "This is not the kind of bill that should go year to year."

For the first time in many years, the health care moratorium was signed well before the May 15 expiration. "We have to give kudos to Gov. Spitzer," Lubin said. Sen. Hugh Farley, R-Schenectady, and Assemblywoman Helen Weinstein, D-Brooklyn, are sponsors of the permanent legislation.

Also key to the union's agenda were the some of the state's most vulnerable citizens, including long-retired educators. "As I put $45 of gas in an ordinary sedan yesterday, I realized rising fuel costs affect everything and everyone, especially those who are really on the low end of the pension system," said Margo Buckingham, Retiree Council 7. "We need to look at maintaining purchasing power and a liveable retirement." Buckingham told lawmakers changes need to be made in the Cost-of-Living Adjustment to help retirees with extremely low pensions.

"There are still people so under-pensioned they are choosing between medication and food," Jeff Rozran, Syosset TA, said. NYSUT is seeking improvements to the permanent COLA it helped become law in 2000.

Also important to the activists is legislation that would allow members with at least 25 years service to retire at age 55 without penalty - which especially impacts those who took time off to raise a family or entered teaching later in life. Under current pension law, educators can face a "catch-22," as they do in Endicott, where they are penalized if they work past 55 to obtain full pension benefits.

"At age 55 you can leave and get 10 years of health insurance, but if you don't leave you lose the health benefit," Michael Terboss of Endicott TA explained.

On the higher ed front, union activists called on lawmakers to end a 3 percent contribution for members of the Optional Retirement Program at the State and City University systems who have contributed for more than 10 years. Similar legislation was enacted in 2000 for members of the state employees and teachers retirement systems - ERS and TRS.

Also in higher education, members called on lawmakers to support legislation allowing unemployment benefits for part-time employees. Assemblyman Peter Abbate, D-Brooklyn, assured his support: "Yes, it should be universal." Vera Weekes, a member of the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY, said, "That they go without money from May to September is unthinkable."

Along with the thanks for record education spending came concerns from members in areas where state funding simply doesn't go far enough.

David Kirby, vice president of the Syracuse TA, said more than 160 educators face layoffs. "We received an 8 to 9 percent increase in state aid," he said, "but it doesn't meet our expenses."

For Jack Costello, president of the Chatham Central School TA, his area's high property tax base belies the needs of the district.

"We're being looked at as affluent and we're really not," he said. "Thirty-three percent of our students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, while more and more families and teachers cannot afford to live in the community."

- Clarisse Butler Banks and Liza Frenette