L.A. Teachers Pact Complicates Talks in Other Districts

In the shadow of the mammoth settlement reached last month by Los Angeles teachers, officials with the Beverly Hills, Culver City and Santa Monica-Malibu school districts are predicting slow going in contract and salary talks that will continue through the summer.

While the latest round of negotiations offers no startling developments from either side, expectations raised by the 24% salary increase over three years won by Los Angeles teachers have solidified local teachers’ demands. District administrators say such a reaction is to be expected, but repeat that fiscal realities are grim.

“The (Los Angeles) settlement is way, way above what this district can afford to offer our teachers, and that of course puts us in a difficult position,” said Culver City schools Supt. Kurt Rethmeyer.

Time for Talks

Between now and mid-August, Culver City and Beverly Hills unified school districts will reopen discussions on annual salary and benefit provisions, as guaranteed in the districts’ existing contracts. The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is negotiating a new contract to replace a two-year pact that expires Friday.

The Los Angeles settlement was made possible in part by a projected state budget surplus, caused by an unexpected surge in tax revenue, of $2.5 billion. The smaller districts also will receive a share of this, although the precise amount each district receives won’t be known for several weeks.

Even with the state windfall, however, local administrators doubt that they will have enough money to satisfy their teachers.

“There’s going to be a reluctance (by teachers) to accept the fact of our financial situation,” Rethmeyer said.

Culver City, the smallest of the three Westside districts, may face the tightest financial crunch. Saddled with a declining enrollment and the subsequent reduction in state aid, the district has had to cut or reduce numerous programs. The Culver City Teachers Assn. (CCTA) says that its teachers’ pay ranking has fallen from second among Los Angeles County’s 45 school districts to 38th over the past 12 years.

“Our teachers are angry, too. We want to work . . . we want to be appreciated, we want to be paid,” said Bess Doerr, CCTA president. Doerr says, although the union won a 6% raise last year, that boost only began to counteract years of much lower increases or periods when teachers were given bonuses instead of base-rate increases.

This year, second in a three-year contract, teachers opened talks two weeks ago asking for an 8% raise. The district, which has 4,600 students and an annual budget of around $20 million, has responded with a 2% offer.

“We’re willing to cooperate, but we also want to be paid and respected,” Doerr said. Referring to the state funds made available by the state’s surge in tax revenue and the landmark public school funding measure approved last November, she said: “Proposition 98 passed, and there is a surplus.”

Good Communications

Doerr also praised the district’s open lines for communication. In an interview, she took pains to avoid threatening a job action, such as the work stoppage and picketing by Culver City teachers three years ago.

“The Los Angeles settlement really perked us up. The teachers were up jumping in the hall,” she said, “We’ve been inspired by Los Angeles, and we do expect (the district) to work with us.”

Rethmeyer said, however, that the Los Angeles settlement was partly a product of rapid enrollment growth, which brought an increase in state funding. He said that because of the enrollment drop in Culver City, the district’s increase in state aid might be as little as 1.4%.

“I think all the parties are going to be disappointed, I guess that’s what it boils down to,” Rethmeyer said. He said that higher pay was the key to attracting good teachers, and that the alternative would be a “continuing deterioration” of the education system.

In the Beverly Hills Unified School District, hopes are that teachers and administrators’ shared frustration at state funding uncertainties will help settle their dispute. In June, 1987, the district barely avoided a strike through last-minute negotiations after 92% of teachers with the Beverly Hills Education Assn. (BHEA) voted to authorize a walkout. A year earlier, teachers picketed at the threat of job cuts.

“We are not blaming one another, accusing one another,” said Robert French, Beverly Hills Unified School District superintendent. “It’s the frustration that the funding of our schools is out of our control, it’s with the state Legislature. I think we both understand that.”

He added that, in any event, the district could not match the Los Angeles offer.

Terms in Beverly Hills

“I have a problem understanding the idea of an 8 plus 8 plus 8 (percent, three-year salary increase) in the cold world of a 4.6,” French said, referring to a percentage by which many local observers were speculating that state funding would rise.

But the BHEA has proposed a 12% boost in salary reopener talks in the third year of a three-year contract that so far has provided two raises of 3% each.

“I think we have a considerably large core of teachers right now that are feeling quite strongly” about the 12% raise, said BHEA President Judy McIntyre.

French, whose district has 4,800 students and a proposed $26-million annual budget, said that a counter-offer will not be announced until the district knows how much money it will get from the state.

In the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, where negotiations have been in progress for weeks over a new contract, the superintendent also says that Los Angeles’ increase is out of reach.

“The dilemma for us is we are not a growing district like Los Angeles is, and our actual income this coming year will be just about what it was this current year because of some decline in enrollment,” said Eugene Tucker. “There’s very little we can cut out any more,” to free money for wages, he said.

Automatic pay increases alone, for instance, which reward both teacher service and increases in their university credits, would outstrip new state outlays, he said.

Progress is being made in the first half of the district’s negotiating process, which involves non-monetary issues, Tucker said. These may include discussion similar to the ground-breaking Los Angeles arrangement where teachers gained a role in “power committees” in the schools.

Various Issues

Although Tucker would not speak in detail, he said that “working conditions, planning time (and) grievance procedures” were all part of talks for the district, which includes 9,300 students and a budget of about $40 million.

Salary negotiations are not expected to be completed before Aug. 17, again pending state action.

June Lucas, Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers’ Assn. president, would not comment on the state of negotiations.

“I don’t think there’s any question that the settlement in Los Angeles raised or established an expectation level on the part of employees,” said Tucker.

“We will do everything we can to provide as fair a raise as we can,” he said, “(but) there are still too many unknowns to the state budget, and that’s the bottom line.”