L.A. Board OKs Pact, Pay Boost for Teachers

The Los Angeles school board officially approved a new contract for the city’s teachers Monday, one that brings their total pay raise to 31.5% over the last three years.

Just three years ago, teachers were bemoaning salaries that started as low as $13,700, and district officials were predicting a dire shortage of new instructors.

But since then, the state has pumped an extra $4.2 billion into the public schools. As a result, the minimum salary in Los Angeles has risen to $20,298 under the contract approved Monday. A teacher with 10 years of experience and a master’s degree will earn $37,424 this year.

Teachers at the lower end of the scale received a 6.4% increase, while those at the top will get 7.4%, with both increases retroactive to last July.

Aggressive Recruitings

Thanks to the higher salaries and what officials call “an aggressive recruiting effort,” the huge district has also been able to hire all the teachers it needs.

“We actually over-hired in the fall,” school spokesman William Rivera said. “We have about 150 teachers in a reserve pool who are being used as substitutes.”

The district’s administrators will also get a 7.4% raise.

“We have the union to thank for that,” Rivera commented, since the pay raise for administrators is tied to the rate negotiated by the United Teachers of Los Angeles.

The increase will keep school Supt. Harry Handler the nation’s highest paid superintendent. Last year, Handler earned $113,731, the top salary among school officials, according to a national survey by the Executive Educator magazine, and the latest raise will bring his salary up to $122,147.

But despite the higher salaries, teachers are not all that happy, according to union officials.

Low Teacher Morale

“Morale is still very low among teachers,” union President Wayne Johnson said. “I think most teachers view the contract as a good one, but there’s a feeling there is too much needless paper work. We get a lot of complaints about that. And teachers also feel they have little or no say in their own profession.”

As for the $63-million contract just negotiated, Johnson said: “We would like to have had more (for salaries.) We hope the lottery money will yield something more this spring.”

The district is expecting to receive at least $25 million from lottery proceeds in February, and the teachers union says it would like some of that money paid out to its members.

However, the school board has not determined yet how it will spend its share of the gambling revenue.

Statewide, salary increases for teachers have averaged 6.6% in 1984, 9.2% in 1985 and are expected to be about 6.5% in 1986, according to the California Teachers Assn.

“We’ve done pretty well on the whole,” said Ralph Flynn, executive director of the state’s largest teachers union, although he added that Gov. George Deukmejian should not get the credit for the increased financing for education.

“What he’s done is the minimum, given the climate in the state,” Flynn said. “The state’s been in fat city for three years, and what we’ve received is the minimum possible, and that came grudgingly.”

Refuses to Meet

Deukmejian has refused to meet with officials from the state teachers union, and on Saturday, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley called the governor a “political Scrooge” in a speech to the meeting of the teachers association in Burlingame.

And not all of the contracts have been settled as amiably as the one in Los Angeles, union officials noted. Teachers in Long Beach and San Diego have reached an impasse in contract talks with their school boards, while teachers in Oakland are on strike, Flynn said.

Even the Beverly Hills school district is having its problems.

“We’ve taken a strike vote, and if the school board votes to unilaterally impose a contract, we’ll walk out,” said Jacques Bernier, executive director of the Beverly Hills Education Assn.

No Offer Yet

Beverly Hills school officials say they have not offered teachers a salary increase as yet, but don’t plan to unilaterally impose a settlement, according to Joan Perlof, a district spokeswoman.

“We have traditionally granted larger than average raises and have been able to pay for it out of our reserve,” Perlof said. But since the district will run a $3-million deficit this year, she said, the teachers’ demands “were way out of line. I think now we’re ready to begin more realistic negotiations.”