SACRAMENTO -- The state's largest teacher's union seems to be having reservations about a proposed "millionaire's tax," even as labor groups hash out strategies for next year's elections.

Dean Vogel, president of the powerful California Teachers Association, says a tax on people making $1 million a year or more -- a levy being pushed by the smaller California Federation of Teachers -- won't generate enough revenue. He also worries that having more than one tax initiative on the November 2012 ballot would turn off voters.

"Our best guess is that CFT's potential proposal is that it'll generate $4 billion, far less than what's needed," Vogel told the Bay Area News Group, adding that at least $8 billion is needed to cover gaping holes in the state budget.

Vogel indicated that he told Gov. Jerry Brown in a conversation last week that he agreed with his concerns about avoiding an expensive ballot war that a tax on the wealthy might provoke.

"We must be smart about putting forth an initiative that has the best chance of success, meaning it does have broad coalition support and it is winnable," Vogel said in a speech to the CTA's state council last weekend.
Resources will be stretched for the 300,000-member CTA and other labor groups gearing up for an even larger fight next November: to kill an initiative that would forbid the use of members' dues for political purposes.

The CTA's state council approved $8 million for initiative battles next year, but that price tag is expected to soar.


Earlier this year, Brown sought to extend taxes on purchases, income and vehicles for a special election he never got because Republicans refused to put a tax measure on the ballot.

But the governor's broad approach to taxes won the support of many business leaders and groups, so Brown is expected to hew to a similar model as he seeks to raise revenues.

Vogel said that the governor's priorities "looked like ours. He knows it's going to take a broad coalition -- labor, community and business -- in order get the job done."

But the California Federation of Teachers, which has 100,000 members, remains hopeful it can persuade the larger teacher's union and Brown to support a tax hike on the wealthy, said Joshua Pechthalt, the CFT's president.

Originally, the plan called for an increase on those earning a million dollars or more a year. But as it works out the details, the CFT is now looking at taxing those who make $500,000 or more a year.

A proposal is in the final stages of drafting and should emerge by the end of this month or early November, Pechthalt said.

The CFT has the support of a pair of Southern California locals of the Service Employees International Union and is in talks with the SEIU's statewide union, which has 700,000 members.

The key is Brown, Pechthalt said.

"I'm pretty confident that if the governor comes up with a measure that's progressive in nature, unions are likely to support it," Pechthalt said. "The educational community will be united around some progressive proposal ... something that raises taxes on people who are doing well."

Pechthalt is less concerned about avoiding the wrath of business groups than Brown or Vogel have expressed.

"We know that as popular as a tax-the-rich notion is, that it will face stiff and well-funded opposition," Pechthalt said.

Vogel, however, said he worried that if the CFT moves forward with its plans to tax millionaires alongside another, more sweeping tax initiative, voters might throw up their hands in exasperation.

"If there is more than one tax initiative, it'll confuse voters and a confused voter will vote no," Vogel said. "The best case scenario is everybody who's looking at a tax initiative comes together and coalesces around one issue."

The CTA is encouraging members to participate in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is calling for the wealthy and big corporations to pay a larger share of taxes.

Vogel sounded a populist note by saying that the "super wealthy and big corporations getting tax breaks means that they're barely contributing to a system that helped them build their wealth."

Still, Vogel said, taxation inequities must be dealt though comprehensive tax reforms enacted by lawmakers, rather than through the ballot.

"We have to have a strategy for short-term relief,'' he said. "But we also need the long-term element when we're looking at the structure of the system in general."