Teachers Seek State Mediation in Stalemate Over Raises

Disgruntled La Canada teachers picketed twice Tuesday after asking the state to intervene in stalled salary negotiations with the La Canada Unified School District.

Two protests--including one at the district’s Board of Education meeting--followed a request Monday asking the state Public Employee Relations Board to mediate the talks.

Teachers late last week declared an impasse in negotiations, and no further meetings with the district are scheduled before the state board decides whether to intervene. A strike is not expected, district and teacher representatives said.

Teachers began negotiations in May demanding an 18% wage increase, but later decreased their request to 10%. District administrators, some of whom concede their proposals are low, initially offered a 6% increase with contract and pay benefits for certain teachers, but recently offered an alternative of 7% without many of those benefits.

Classified employees agreed in November to a 6% increase.

“The cost-of-living increase offer they’re making us is an embarrassment,” said Martin Lipofsky, a science teacher at La Canada High School and president of the La Canada Teachers Assn. “We’ve done everything we can to make ours distinguished schools, and our salaries don’t reflect that. It’s just not right.”

District administrators say a 7% increase is the most the district can afford to offer its approximately 170 teachers.

“We believe the lower-end salaries on this schedule are pretty low, and are not tremendously competitive at this time,” said Voytek Dolinski, district director of curriculum. “But I don’t see any money out there that is not out there already. There’s no extra money anywhere.”

About $800,000 of this year’s $15-million budget has been set aside for salary increases. Other funds viewed by teachers as surplus already have been budgeted or must be spent elsewhere, district officials said.

A reserve of $415,000 from developer fees, for instance, under state law may only be used for construction or renovation. Another reserve of about $360,000 has been budgeted for building renovation and is not expected to be available next year. And about $465,000 has been earmarked by state law to be used only for fiscal emergencies, according to Carol Siegler, president of the Board of Education.

Teachers, who are in the second year of a three-year contract with yearly negotiations over salary, last year received a pay increase of 11.9%, mainly because of higher enrollments, increases in class size and funds from Proposition 98, an initiative passed last year that allocates about 40% of the state’s surplus to California schools. Enrollment has leveled off, and all Proposition 98 funds already have been budgeted to pay teachers’ salaries, Siegler said.

Those explanations have not satisfied angry teachers, who say they are being slighted for costly satellite dishes, library-media centers and fax machines. La Canada teachers’ salaries--ranging from $20,265 for a beginning teacher to $42,970 for 25 years of experience--are the third lowest in Los Angeles County. “We contend that because we are top-quality teachers and are producing a top-quality product, we should at least be in the middle of the range, not the bottom,” said Elizabeth Rose, a La Canada English teacher. District students consistently score among the highest on state-administered tests.

“What we’re talking about is not a few more hundred bucks,” Rose said. “The discrepancy is dramatic.”

About 100 teachers marched early Tuesday along a sidewalk in front of La Canada High School before classes began. Many carried picket signs and displayed them to passing traffic, while others distributed flyers and window stickers to staff and students arriving at the high school.

“We used to be top, top, top, but as the years have gone on and things have taken their toll, we’ve slipped” in salaries, said Kathleen Seiler, 60, who taught La Canada elementary school students for 30 years before retiring in June. “It isn’t right that people devote their lives to a career, then, because of their salaries, don’t have a retirement they can look forward to.”

Teachers appeared again Tuesday night at the La Canada Board of Education meeting, armed with information for board members. Teachers first came before the board Nov. 21 to complain about the proposed wage increase, and have held community meetings and distributed flyers about their demands, organizers said.