Spitzer Orders Charters To Pay Union Wages

This is unfortunate:

Without seeking legislative approval, the Spitzer  administration has quietly ordered charter schools to start paying union wages on all construction, repair, and maintenance projects.
 
Handed down by an administration that has encouraged the growth of charter schools in New York, the new policy came as a surprise to charter school operators and advocates, who say it will force them to spend as much as 30% more on building costs and divert classroom expenditures.
 
Several charter school groups have filed suit against the state's Department of Labor to overturn the wage mandate, which went into effect September 20, contending that education law exempts the schools from  paying union wages and that the labor department, in mandating the change, usurped the authority of the state Legislature, whose members have tried but failed to pass a similar measure...
 
"The letter came out of nowhere, and people are looking to find out whether it's going to be enforced or whether it's the Spitzer administration's belief that this is how the law is going to be interpreted,"  the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform in New York City,  Joseph Williams, said. "People are not looking to jump to quick conclusions.  They are looking to see from Spitzer how committed he is to this concept."

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Spitzer Orders Charters To Pay Union Wages
By JACOB GERSHMAN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 28, 2007
www.nysun.com/article/67072

Without seeking legislative approval, the Spitzer administration has quietly ordered charter schools to start paying union wages on all construction, repair, and maintenance projects.