SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Five months ago, members of AFSCME Local 2620, the union representing therapists and social workers in California state government, received preloaded $25 debit cards in the mail.
Each came with a note: “This gift is from President Shukimba Carlis in appreciation of all that you do.”
The gesture, proposed by Carlis two months earlier, has roiled the union’s leadership. Her notes taking credit for the cards — paid for with about $102,000 in union funds — further inflamed divisions, with some on the board of directors accusing her of using them to advance a re-election campaign.
The dispute led to internal charges against Carlis and a formal reprimand on July 18 from an AFSCME judicial panel member. Tim Warren, who is based in Ohio, determined Carlis had run afoul of union rules by sending the gift cards even after the board voted down her proposal.
In a recent interview, Carlis defended her decision to override the board’s vote. She also raised questions about the union’s finances, which she said she delved into after defeating an incumbent in the union election for president two years ago.
“I stand by my decision and what I did, and I did the right thing for our members,” Carlis said. “I can sleep at night. And if I had it to do all over again, I’d do the same thing.”
The union represents about 5,600 employees, including psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, pharmacists, dietitians and nutritionists. Most work in state prisons and mental hospitals. As of May, 2,853 were dues-paying members, according to the most recent data from the State Controller’s Office.
Carlis said she first had the idea to return a small portion of members’ dues after she and a new treasurer recovered money from four union accounts that had become dormant through inactivity under past treasurers.
“Those are monies none of us knew we had, so why not just give it back to the members,” she said.
In December she formally proposed sending $20 gift cards to members for an estimated cost of about $72,000, according to the July judicial panel decision, which was obtained by The Sacramento Bee.
Seven of the board’s 15 members participated in the vote. Three voted “yes,” four “no,” one abstained and one said she was “in favor of the prevailing vote.”
Carlis notified the board the motion had failed. A few days later, another member said she would have been a “yes” had she been able to vote, but Carlis told her it was too late, according to the decision.
Nearly two months later, on Feb. 7, an expenditure of about $102,000 appeared on a Local 2620 account for $25 gift cards from perfectgift.com, according to the decision. The expenditure covered 3,000 gift cards plus packaging and shipping, Carlis said.
Carlis told the rest of the board that she felt it was unfair the late vote hadn’t been counted. She decided to count it, creating a tie she then broke with her own vote, she told the board. Carlis also increased the amount on the cards to $25, even though the vote had been for $20.
Board member Lisa Smith accused Carlis in March of violating several provisions of the union’s constitution, including requirements to carry out the board’s decisions, adhere to financial codes and follow Robert’s Rules of Order. Board trustees Yok Choi and Wanda Wullschleger filed a charge accusing Carlis of misappropriating union funds.
Warren, the AFSCME judicial council member who reviewed the allegations, found her guilty of the three initial charges from Smith, according to his written decision. But Warren cleared Carlis of the more serious misappropriation charge, finding no evidence she took the money for herself. Instead, her “action was for the benefit of the membership because the monies were given directly to the membership via the gift cards,” he said in the decision.
Dormant accounts, election fallout
Carlis defeated incumbent president Eric Young and another candidate in October 2020. She received 242 out of 464 votes, winning a two-year term with 51.8% of the vote, according to election results.
She said she has faced opposition from some board members, whom she described as Young’s allies, ever since.
Smith and Choi declined comment for this story. Efforts to reach Young and Wullschleger were unsuccessful.
Carlis denied she had used the gift cards as a campaign tool. She said she was elected as a reformer and then launched an extensive review of the union’s finances, identifying the four dormant accounts through bank statements, financial documents and old emails.
She said that she couldn’t recall how much money was in each account. She did not provide the amounts after repeated followup requests from The Bee, nor did she provide top-line revenue or expenditure figures.
The union’s treasurer, Sofia Herrera, declined to provide any financial information about the union after The Bee requested the organization’s Form 990s, which tax-exempt organizations are required to provide upon request under IRS regulations.
It’s also unclear how much the union’s members pay in dues each month, but $25 is likely less than a month’s worth of dues.
Median wages for employees represented by the union, not counting benefits, ranged from about $5,900 per month for rehabilitation counselors to about $11,000 per month for pharmacists in 2018, according to the most recent pay figures published by the state Human Resources Department.
Carlis said Choi, a former elected treasurer, had failed to recover money from the dormant accounts during her term. Carlis said one of the accounts had enough money in it to cover the gift cards.
Choi, reached by phone, declined to discuss Carlis’ allegations.
Carlis said she has initiated an external audit of the union’s finances for 2018, 2019 and 2020. She said Wullschleger and Choi have filed additional internal union charges against her related to audits that are still pending.
