JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. – Union officials in the Jefferson County, Colorado school district are hypocrites.

That fact became crystal clear this week when the Colorado Observer reported the Jefferson County Education Association contributed exclusively to Democratic candidates over the last five years.

The revelation comes just a few short months after JCEA President Ami Prichard denounced partisan politics during last November’s school board races.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

Prichard told the Denver Post she was “disheartened by efforts to turn the race into a partisan battle.

“It’s really sad that people are using the school board to make a political statement,” she said.

Prichard’s public relations games are also quite sad.

The Observer reports the JCEA spent about $214,000 on campaign activities and political donations between 2009 and 2013, and all of it went to members of one party: Democrats.

“The union contributed $12,500 to the Colorado Democratic Party from 2010 to 2012, and $2,500 to the House Majority Project, a Democratic fundraising group, in 2012,” according to the Observer.

Locally, the JECA’s small-donor committee spent $18,500 on Democrat-endorsed candidates for the school board last year, and nothing on Republican-endorsed candidates in the “nonpartisan” contest.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

What was that about keeping parties out of school board elections, Ms. Prichard?

Three Republican candidates won over the union/Democrat-endorsed candidates, and gained majority control over the five-member school board. The JCEA-friendly superintendent Cindy Stevenson resigned the day after the November election and cut her contract four months short to leave in February, the Observer reports.

While the JCEA has every right to endorse and support whatever candidates it chooses, it severely erodes the union’s credibility when officials accuse their political foes of doing exactly the same thing they are.

It makes the union’s current antics during the district’s heated collective bargaining sessions seem more like theatrics than sincere negotiating.

During recent contract talks – which the board made public this year for the first time – union officials stormed out and declared an impasse. JCEA officials also launched an anti-school board campaign, complete with a Facebook page and weekly teacher protests, to pressure school leaders into extending the union’s current contract, which doesn’t expire until August 2015, the Observer reports.

“It is disappointing that the union does not seem to really want increased transparency. We hope the JCEA comes back to the bargaining table and honors the commitment they made to open negotiations,” Shela Atwell, executive director of Jeffco Students First, said in a statement, according to the news site.

The union’s response? More hypocrisy.

“It has become clear to the JCEA bargaining team that this year’s bargaining process is disrespecting a 45-year tradition that has made us great,” Stephie Rossi, the JCEA bargaining leader, told Chalkbeat. “The board has not empowered their team to bring truth to the table and we cannot reach a mutually agreed upon outcome without the truth.”

The truth is union labor expenses tied to the current JCEA contract are costing the district far more than they should, and the district’s “45-year tradition” of closed collective bargaining sessions has only made matters worse.

Bringing negotiations into the light for the public to follow will not only result in a much more affordable contract, it will help prevent union officials from playing taxpayers for fools with misleading and hypocritical propaganda.