Compton

After calling a 1% pay raise offer an insult, Compton’s teachers presented their case Tuesday to an impartial state fact-finder who is expected to decide in about a month if the school district can afford to increase employee wages.

The 1,300 teachers, who have worked without a contract since September, are requesting a 12% raise.

The district, which told the fact-finder it faces a budget deficit for the seventh straight year, offered a 1% raise last week after analyzing expenditures for the first half of the 1984-85 fiscal year.

Jean Curtis, president of the teachers’ Compton Education Assn., said the district offer was “more insulting than staying put.”

Supt. Ted Kimbrough has said the district simply does not have the money to offer raises as large as last year’s 5%.

The three-member fact-finding panel, which includes the state fact-finder and representatives from the teachers and the district, heard evidence from both sides Tuesday. It is scheduled to meet again March 7.

The state fact-finder will then render a non-binding opinion on how much the district can afford to pay the teachers. The two parties will then return to the bargaining table to try to reach an agreement, Curtis said.

Teachers may not legally strike or temporarily walk off the job during the fact-finding period, nor is there much interest in striking at this point, she said.

“Our druthers would be to settle reasonably and not to have to do any saber rattling,” she said.

Many teachers walked out of their classrooms for one day a year ago, then settled for the 5% pay increase.

Teachers have argued this year that a 5.8% increase in state funding to the district has not been passed along in salaries. But Kimbrough has said that Compton employees received an 8.5% boost in salary and benefits two years ago, when the state provided no extra dollars for inflation.

The school board adopted a $93-million budget in September that froze salaries of all 2,850 district employees, including about 1,300 clerical and maintenance workers whose contract is also being negotiated.

Trustees cut $6 million from last year’s budget, but a $760,000 deficit remained and was expected to grow because budgeted employee layoffs were rejected by the school board.

Author James Baldwin is scheduled to attend a celebration of youth achievement and black accomplishment Saturday at the Compton Community College gymnasium at 1111 E. Artesia Blvd.

The 60-year-old Baldwin, author of numerous acclaimed books on the black experience, is expected to join some 300 academically oriented students from schools in Compton, Lynwood and Inglewood, said coordinator Jess Arnold.

The students’ work in science, math, art and other disciplines will be featured from 2 to 6 p.m., with Baldwin arriving about 4:30, said Arnold. The public is invited, and admission is free.

“This is an opportunity for James Baldwin to come and see what some of the young folks are doing and for the young folks to see a role model like him,” said Arnold.

About 50 profiles of other prominent black Americans will also be exhibited.

Baldwin, grandson of a slave and son of a Harlem minister, became well-known after the 1953 publication of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and has written several other books and plays.

A resident of Paris, France, he will be honored Sunday as part of the Los Angeles County Library’s Living Information Series at the A. C. Bilbrew Library, 150 E. El Segundo Blvd., Los Angeles.

For more information, call Arnold at 922-4913 or the library’s Wini Jackson at 922-7669.