FOIA REQUEST: Records of Compliance by the National Education Association with Reporting Requirements Contained in Its Federal Charter
| Agency | Department of Education |
|---|---|
| Type | FOIA Request |
| Issue | Teacher Unions |
| Tracking | 100-8-22 |
| Date | Aug 24, 2023 |
The National Education Association (“NEA”) is both the largest labor union in the United States and the only such union to which Congress has granted a federal charter. That charter, which Congress granted to the NEA in 1906, established the “National Education Association of the United States” as a corporation in the District of Columbia. The charter identifies the dual purposes of the NEA as follows: “to elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching” and “to promote the cause of education in the United States.”Prior to fiscal year 1999, the NEA’s federal charter exempted from taxation the organization’s real property (i.e., land and buildings) located in the District of Columbia provided that it was used for the charter-based purposes defined above and not used to produce income. Beginning in that year, Congress ended this real property tax exemption, declaring that such real property held by the NEA “shall be subject to taxation by the District of Columbia in the same manner as any similar organization.” However, this law left in place the charter’s parallel exemption of the NEA from the taxation of its personal property, so long as such property is used for the purposes of the corporation described above “or to produce income to be used for those purposes.” As a tool for overseeing compliance with the terms of these tax exemptions, Congress included in the NEA’s charter the following requirement: The corporation shall submit annually to the Secretary of Education a written report stating in detail for the prior year— (1) the real and personal property held by the corporation; (2) the income from the property; and (3) the expenditure or other use or disposition of the property and income from the property. DFI requests that ED produce within twenty (20) business days as required by statute all reports and any other communications submitted by the NEA, or any of its officers or employees, to the Department between May 1980 to the date of the search in compliance with the requirement of 36 U.S.C. § 151106(c) (for the NEA to submit annually to the Secretary of Education a written report detailing for each prior year the real and personal property held by the NEA, the income from that property, and the expenditure or other use or disposition of the property and income from the property).
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