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Former AEA Executive Secretary Henry Mabry

If you're a teacher, bus driver, or lunchroom worker in Alabama, let me give you some advice about your dues to the Alabama Education Association.

Keep it in your pocket. Save that money. Or spend it on groceries or a nice night out, but don't give it to AEA, because you're not getting what you're paying for - not anymore.

At least I don't think you are.

Last year, the AEA board made a promise to you, its members. It would conduct an audit of the organization's finances, and when that audit was complete, it would make it public.

Last week, that same AEA board received that audit, which was overseen by the National Education Association, as well as another "personnel audit" which asked employees in the organization what their work lives were like. Whatever the results of that audit, it was enough for the organization to begin the termination process for its executive secretary and treasurer, Henry Mabry.

But here's the thing - that's all we know about it because the board went back on its promise to make that information public, and that tells you most of what you need to know about the organization right now.

I don't know what the audit says, but here's what I do know. AEA has been bleeding money, putting its reserves into investments so risky that Merrill Lynch refused to have anything to do with them anymore. When investment bankers take a step back, that's a pretty good clue that you're dealing with something seriously toxic.

Meanwhile, long-time employees have fled AEA or been fired. In their place, Mabry hired expensive outside consultants. In fiscal year 2013 alone, it spent $3.8 million on these consultants, and the organization's 2014 tax records are not yet available to see what has happened since.

Also, AEA's political cash has gone to mysterious companies that have post office boxes in other states, but no websites.

Last week, an Alabama Republican Party committee accused the party's former chairman, Bill Armistead, of working with several political operatives to funnel AEA money into several campaigns without the party executive committee knowing about it. Take a second to think about what that means - the game of political money laundering is alive and well, no matter whether it was legal.

Altogether, AEA blew through $7 million in campaign cash last year, with mediocre results.

Last September, only a month before he died, AEA's previous long-time chief, Paul Hubbert, wrote the board members to alert them of these problems, but the most alarming thing about his letter should be this: He had to alert them, when it was their job to already know. Hubbert's letter is chiefly evidence that AEA's internal controls had failed.

The simplest way to sum it all up - it's a damn mess.

Everyone has a messy room or closet that would make them blush if company opened the door. Maybe it's a stuffy attic full of boxes that never got unpacked, or a shed full of junk.

But AEA has worse. It has a basement full of ugly, smelly things - mold, termites and radon gas. It's no wonder they don't want the outside world to see it.

But it must. Whoever is in charge there (that, itself, is a place to start) must shine a light down there and tell the members what they're dealing with.

Because I've seen this sort of thing before - at Jefferson County, at HealthSouth, at my alma mater, Birmingham-Southern. I've seen this type of story unfold, and that experience tells me this - until they come clean about their mess, they'll never get it under control.

The sad thing is that AEA members need a champion in Montgomery now more than ever. Alabama Senate pro tem Del Marsh wants to expand the state's scholarship program to put more children into private schools, and many lawmakers want to open the door in Alabama to charter schools. At the same time, the state has a gaping hole in its General Fund, and there are not many lawmakers on Goat Hill who would rather raise taxes than rob the Education Trust Fund to patch it.

And then former state Sen. Roger Bedford - whose name is the definition of a crooked Democrat to many Alabamians - says he might be interested in the top AEA job.

Things for AEA are getting worse, and I can't tell you when they will get any better.

So, if you're a teacher, bus driver, or lunchroom worker in Alabama, stick those dues in your pocket or stuff that money under your mattress.

Without a functional, competent and transparent AEA, pretty soon you're going to need it.