Pay for Teachers: State Holds Keys to the Cash

The middle-aged man who had watched teachers demonstrate at a rally last week wagged a finger to emphasize his point.

“It’s a crying shame that a community as rich as Tustin won’t pay their teachers a decent salary,” he said.

The man then walked off, having vented his support last week for Tustin’s striking teachers.

But his comment only underscored the ignorance of many otherwise well-educated Californians about the topsy-turvy condition of school financing since 1973.

In most cases, it doesn’t matter how rich a community is. Property values no longer determine how well-paid teachers--or police, or firefighters, or anyone else who works for City Hall or the school board--will be.

During the teachers’ six-day strike, which ended on Thursday, at least temporarily, the focus of community attention was on the putative combatants: the Tustin Unified school board and the teachers’ union, the Tustin Educators Assn.

Nary a mention was made of Sacramento and state government. The simple fact, however, is that local school districts are really wards of the state. Legal moves in the early 1970s started legislative action to put lids on per-student spending in wealthy districts like Tustin.

And since the voters’ statewide passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, local governments, especially school districts, have had no viable way of raising more money at the local level to pay for buildings and maintenance and other school costs.

Proposition 13 not only put a lid (1% of assessed valuation) on property taxes statewide, it also made it extremely hard for local governments to use alternative taxes. The amendment that was locked into the state Constitution by the passage of Proposition 13 forbids governments at all levels to pass new taxes without a referendum approved by two-thirds of residents voting.

“Irvine Unified tried to pass a special tax (in 1983),” said Lawrence Sutherland, the business manager for Tustin Unified. “They failed, and if there was one place in Orange County where that special tax might have passed, it would have been Irvine.”

Sutherland pointed out a fact that few in Tustin--or most other California communities--realize: the state is now the chief paymaster of schools and other arms of local government.

“If Tustin drew in some rich new industries and more development, it wouldn’t make any difference,” Sutherland said. As local income grew, the state support would drop correspondingly. The local property values are thus almost meaningless, he noted.

Complicating the status of funds for education is the Serrano-Priest decision of the state Supreme Court in the 1970s. That decision said it is unconstitutional for education to vary according to the wealth of local communities.

Adoption of Formula

“The Legislature back in 1973 started working on the basis of that decision,” said Sutherland. To try to equalize funds per student in California, the Legislature adopted a complicated formula, called “average daily attendance,” which gives each district a set amount of money per full-time student. Districts that historically had low per-student spending were given more funds by the Legislature. Wealthy communities were in effect put under a bell jar: they were locked into fund levels that had little growth so that they would not continue to outstrip the poorer districts.

Tustin is among the once-wealthy districts that have become poorer, as that equalization of state fund allocations has taken place.

The state this year gives Tustin $2,443.80 per full-time student, Lawrence said, putting Tustin “slightly below” average for the 12 unified districts in Orange County.

“The situation now is that 85% of our income comes from money controlled by the state,” Sutherland added. He noted that the word “control” is important: not all of the money comes from the state, but the state now controls how much income goes to school districts.

Declining Enrollment

In addition to being squeezed by the state’s equalization and strapped by Proposition 13, Tustin Unified has been hit by declining enrollment. From its high of about 15,000 students in 1976, enrollment dropped to about 10,000 this year. Since each full-time student brings in $2,444, the loss of the thousands of students has severely cut Tustin Unified’s income.

Moreover, the district has no way to get alternative income except to seek a special tax, a move that, as Sutherland noted, lost badly in Irvine despite strong, organized community support.

Ross said that despite the declining enrollment and loss of state money, Tustin Unified had only one limited layoff of teachers, in the spring of 1978. “We’ve kept everyone since then,” he said. Since 1976, the district has reduced its administrative staff from 63 to 37, he said, and it has closed nine schools.

Still, that has not been enough to keep ahead of inflation of operating costs and at the same time give cost-of-living raises to the teachers, Ross said. A main issue in the strike was the teachers’ anger that the district offered them no cost-of-living pay raise for 1984-85.

‘We’re Not the First’

Teachers noted that Tustin Unified would have been the only district in Orange County without such a pay raise for last year. But Tustin administrators counter that other districts have had to forgo cost-of-living raises in other years. “We’re not the first or the only one,” said Ross. “Orange Unified had to miss a year, and so did Saddleback (Unified). This would have been the first year for us to miss a pay raise, despite our loss of enrollment over the years.”

More money will be coming to Tustin and other school districts from California’s new lottery. But state education administrators are worried about how stable a source of income that will be. The lottery money, even before it arrives, is an object of dispute in Tustin: teachers want the school district to commit 60% of the money for higher salaries. The board has refused but has said it would favor the teachers’ other recommendation that 40% of the lottery money be earmarked for reducing the number of pupils per classroom.

Bill Honig, California’s state superintendent of schools, said Thursday that Tustin’s financial situation reflects the plight of many school districts where enrollment is decreasing.

‘Very Bad Feelings’

“We had state legislation this year to help the declining enrollment districts, but the governor vetoed it,” Honig said. “We hope we can come back and get something passed next year.”

But Honig said that financial binds do not fully explain the crisis in Tustin’s schools.

“There were very bad feelings on both sides,” he said. “I know. I’ve talked to both sides. They allowed the process to get out of hand, and that’s the lesson: you can’t allow the bargaining process to get out of hand. It’s not just money; it’s also a psychological attitude. The last thing we need is bad blood.”