Teacher Payroll Deductions for Professional Association Dues: The Law and Practice in Tennessee
October 2021
Author: Linda Wesson
This brief, prepared in response to a legislative request, provides information on how local school districts operate under Tennessee’s Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act (PECCA), a 2011 state law that addresses how local school board management and representatives of professional school employees deliberate and establish agreements on employment conditions.
Specifically, the brief addresses how many districts typically engage in collaborative conferencing and to what extent the agreements reached by school board management and professional employees address voluntary payroll deductions, including those for annual dues of professional employee organizations.
PECCA prohibits payroll deductions for political activities, and one of the conclusions of the brief is that legal interpretations of PECCA’s payroll deduction restriction vary.