Teacher Bonus Held Up by Interpretation of Law

The 825 teachers in the Irvine Unified School District won’t be getting a pay bonus on time because of a legal dispute with the county Department of Education, school officials said Monday.

The teachers, as part of a pay agreement negotiated last June, were scheduled to get a bonus, ranging from $200 to $400, on Jan. 1, said Paul Reed, a special assistant in the school district. The money is part of Irvine Unified’s receipts this year from the state lottery. But the county Department of Education, which by state law issues paychecks for all school districts in the county, has refused to disburse the extra funds.

“There is a constitutional problem,” said Robert Peterson, county superintendent of schools. He noted that the state Constitution specifically says “a local government may not grant extra compensation . . . without authority of law.”

Peterson said the county department’s attorneys see the proposed bonus as “extra compensation” unless the money is made part of the district’s regular pay schedule. He said the department would issue checks if Irvine Unified agreed to change its teacher salary schedule to reflect the one-time payment.

Peterson said the Fountain Valley School District last spring was able to issue a one-time bonus to its teachers because the money became a temporary part of the district’s pay schedule.

Irvine Unified officials, however, said that changing the schedule temporarily is a time-consuming procedure and one that they feel is not required. “The school district feels this is legal,” Reed said. “. . .There are similar (bonus) payments made by other school districts in the state. It is not clear to us why the county Department of Education is refusing to do this.”

But Peterson said, “We are the paymaster. It is our neck on the block. We are not going to do something that is illegal.”

The Irvine Teachers Assn. has threatened to take the issue to court. Peterson said that if a judge declares the bonus payment legal, the county department will issue the money.