8.5% Each of First 2 Years : Simi Teachers OK Retroactive Contract

Despite a heated debate at a union meeting earlier this week, Simi Valley teachers voted overwhelmingly Friday to accept the district’s latest offer for a three-year contract.

Sixty-seven percent of the 800 district teachers approved the contract, which will give them an 8.5% salary increase retroactive to the 1984-85 academic year, another 8.5% increase for this year and a cost-of-living increase for next year, said Judy Mandel, president of the Simi Educators Assn.

Part of the 8.5% increase this year will be in the form of a lottery stipend that teachers will receive in two payments a year beginning in July. Without the stipend, the raise would be 6.5%.

Before the new contract, teachers made $15,300 to $34,600 a year in Simi Valley, where schools operate year-round.

Mandel said the teachers made it clear Friday that they were still unhappy with the district’s decisions not to give lottery funds to adult-education teachers and to cap payments for health and retirement benefits for regular teachers.

Different Financing

Salaries for adult-education teachers, by state law, are financed differently from regular teachers’ pay, said Allan Jacobs, assistant superintendent for instruction and support services for the district. The district thought there was no need to give a share of the lottery money to the Simi Valley adult-education teachers because they are among the highest paid in the state, he said.

The adult-education teachers will receive the same 6.5% salary increase as the regular teachers but not the lottery stipend, Jacobs said.

Rob Collins, a member of the teachers union bargaining team, said the union would bargain with the district over that issue when they meet in the next few months.

The district also will limit payments for health and retirement benefits to $4,119 per teacher in 1985-86, with a $100 cost-of-living increase to be added in 1986-87. Teachers had feared paying out-of-pocket expenses for any further increase, Mandel said, but the union negotiated with the district to pay for any additional increase with the union’s share 30% share of the lottery money.

“I think a lot of people were disappointed,” Collins said, “but they reluctantly voted for it because they felt it was the best contract offer they would get from the district without going to a strike.”