LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- If you voted in Jefferson County on Election Day, you probably saw teachers holding up signs supporting their union's candidates for school board. And it was on taxpayers' dime.

“It needs to be stopped. It’s just wrong.” Jefferson County School Board member Patrick O’Leary lost to one of those candidates who got Jefferson County Teachers Association backing.

“It’s just wrong we spent $70,000 and teachers missed some training to campaign for school board candidates,” he says. “That’s just not right.”

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According to O’Leary, 228 teachers were granted paid leave on Election Day. With an the average teacher salary of $289 a day, O’Leary estimates taxpayers spent about $66,000 on teachers’s campaigning.

“We’re really proud of what our folks did,” says JCTA President Brent McKim.

The school system and McKim say it's all legal under terms of the teachers contract.

The Jefferson County teachers contract allows for “association leave” of up to 175 leave days per year for teachers to attend regional, state or national union meetings.

It doesn't say anything about political campaigning. Two hundred thirty-three association leave days were taken in one day, way over the contractual limit of 175. So what gives?

“We would prefer that teachers not get involved, actively campaigning when on association leave,” says Bill Eckels of Jefferson County Schools. “But how we regulate that is a different story.”

There's a past policy and practices clause that supersedes other language in the contract. In other words, since the school system has been paying teachers to campaign on Election Day for years without using their own sick or personal days, they couldn't say no this year.

O’Leary had four school employees campaigning for him on election day, but their union, AFSCME, will reimburse the school system for their salaries.

O’Leary has asked the Kentucky attorney general if paying teachers to campaign is legal. By the way, the Jefferson County Teachers Union paid its members an extra $100 if they campaigned for four hours on Election Day.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.