Board Narrowly OKs 15% Raises for Teachers

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted 4 to 3 Tuesday to approve a three-year contract that will provide teachers more than 15% in pay and benefits increases and will put the district in the red.

District officials estimated that the raises, retroactive to July 1, will eat up $100 million in reserves this year and divert millions of dollars from nearly two dozen other accounts, including textbooks, the reading program, school discretionary funds, professional development and the central office.

The pay package for the district’s 43,000 teachers will leave next year’s budget $153 million short.

Making the impending deficits even more painful, the board learned Tuesday that it may have to refund the state about $108 million that the district received for improperly reported attendance. A state audit showed that the district has been over-reporting excused absences at a rate of about $36 million a year.

The three dissenting board members called the salary package fiscally irresponsible and predicted chaos when the district tries to balance next year’s budget.

“I think we’re going to see some major layoffs,” said board member Caprice Young.

Supt. Roy Romer argued passionately for the plan, saying it was a prudent way to raise teachers’ salaries to about the county median and to avoid a costly strike.

“Next year we need to suck it up and find a way to close that gap,” Romer said. “How do we do it? There are ways to do it.”

District Chief Financial Officer Joe Zeronian said he has prepared a five-year projection showing that the district can sustain the raise.

“We believe the impact on the educational program will be minimal at most and in most cases no impact whatsoever,” Zeronian said.

Much of the cutting in the current year’s $8.9-billion budget came from surpluses that would not have been spent anyway, Zeronian said. A $20-million reduction in textbook funds, for example, came after $123 million in textbook purchases, a nearly fivefold increase from the previous year.

Board members Victoria Castro, Valerie Fields, Julie Korenstein and David Tokofsky supported the contract. Board President Genethia Hayes and board member Mike Lansing joined Young in opposition.

Lansing proposed a 30-day delay until Zeronian reports a preliminary budget, so that the board would know what cuts it was making before giving the money to teachers.

Lansing said he fears the salary increases will prevent the 723,000-student district from expanding its reading program and intervention for failing students.

Hayes predicted that in future years the contract will draw as much as $460 million from programs.

“We’re doing this in a blind,” Hayes said. “I think that is a dangerous way to do business.”

Lansing’s motion to postpone failed on the same vote, however.

Board member David Tokofsky argued that any delay would prove demoralizing to teachers who are preparing students for this year’s state tests.

Korenstein asked Romer point-blank if the contract was leading the district into “major, horrific trouble.”

“No, I do not,” he said.

The contract provides average increases of 11% plus 2% to make permanent a one-time bonus paid last year, 1.8% to maintain current benefits and 0.5% in increases for teacher coaches.

It also includes some strengthening of principals’ authority to assign teachers to tracks and grade levels.

In exchange for salary cuts in the early 1990s, teachers won the right to choose those positions by seniority. The new contract empowers principals to distribute nonpermanent teachers proportionately across all tracks and grade levels.

The contract also sets up a procedure for principals to appoint teachers to coordinator positions, subject to ratification by teachers.

In other matters:

* The board received a draft of an audit by the state controller’s office, finding that the district overstated excused absences by an average of more than 9,000 per day in the 1996-1997 school year.

The district will owe $36 million for that year. The auditors estimated that the district might owe the same amount for the 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 years.

The over-reporting resulted from a combination of faulty record keeping, invalid excuses cited for absences, and mathematical and clerical errors

* The Los Angeles board approved a $5-million reorganization of the district’s legal office, which has been criticized in a series of audits as understaffed and disorganized.

The latest audit, by district Inspector General Don Mullinax, said the office of general counsel has “historically suffered from a lack of decisive leadership and a lack of overall sense of purpose or mission.”

Case management was inadequate and attorney caseload was unrealistically high, the audit said.

General Counsel Harold J. Kwalwasser, who assumed his job in December, said he agreed completely. Kwalwasser said he will add 22 new lawyers to the office and raise pay to be competitive with private industry.

He said he also will train district administrators, principals and teachers to be less “dismissive” of the public to avoid unnecessary litigation.