School Board’s Bid for a Pay Hike Hits a Snag in Sacramento : Education: Members told to petition for new legislation rather than seek increase to $55,000 through state waiver process. Current pay is $2,000 a month.

Efforts by Los Angeles school board members to become a full-time body with annual salaries of about $55,000 hit a snag Thursday when a committee of the State Board of Education told two Los Angeles board members to take the issue up with the Legislature.

The two board members who came to Sacramento to plead the case--Warren Furutani and Roberta Weintraub--said the board might approach the Legislature, but probably not for two years.

Because state law limits Los Angeles school board members to maximum pay of $2,000 a month, the board needs a waiver from the State Board of Education in order to increase the amount.

Furutani and Weintraub argued that they and their five colleagues already work more than full time on the affairs of the mammoth Los Angeles school district. They also said that state conflict-of-interest laws prevent most board members from holding second jobs.

But Kenneth L. Peters, chairman of the state board’s administrative committee, said that new legislation, not the state board waiver process, “would be the best answer at this time.”

Kathryn Dronenburg, another committee member, said, “I feel real uncomfortable, having to deal with this issue with no guidelines from the department.”

She referred to the fact that State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig took a neutral position on the Los Angeles request.

Furutani and Weintraub then withdrew the waiver request on behalf of the Los Angeles board, so it will not be discussed when the full State Board of Education meets today.

Outside the meeting room, the two Los Angeles board members said there appeared to be little support for the waiver among state board members, some of whom think serving on a school board should not be a full-time, well-paid job.

Furutani also said he thought the issue had become entangled in the controversy between Honig and the state board over who should control California educational policy.

Weintraub said Los Angeles will follow the state board committee’s advice and ask the Legislature for permission to raise board members’ salaries, but she was not sure this would be done during the 1991 legislative session.

“We’ll have to make a political judgment on going to the Legislature this time around,” she said. “Remember, we have four board members up for reelection next spring.”

The four are Furutani, board President Jackie Goldberg, Leticia Quezada and Rita Walters.

The Los Angeles waiver request did not specify a new top salary but in a letter to the state board, Goldberg suggested that the new cap be 80% of a Los Angeles City Council member’s salary, now $68,926, or about $55,000 a year.

Furutani and Weintraub insisted that the current annual salary of $24,000 is inadequate for a job that requires 50 to 60 hours of work each week. In addition, Los Angeles board members have two-member staffs, leased cars and the same medical and other benefits as district teachers and staff members.

Weintraub, who has been on the school board since 1979, told the state board committee: “There has never been a week when I have worked less than 60 hours--never. This is not a part-time job but we get part-time pay.”

She said the $24,000 paid to board members is $6,000 less than the salary of a beginning teacher in Los Angeles.

In her letter, Goldberg pointed out that the board is responsible for about 850,000 students in more than 800 regular schools, adult schools and occupational and children’s centers, in the 708-square-mile school district.

“This is probably the toughest job in politics,” Weintraub said in an interview after the meeting. “We’re closer to the voters” than other officeholders and “we deal with a great many sensitive issues and, most of all, we’re dealing with their kids.”

Board members are barred from many jobs, she and Furutani pointed out, because of state conflict-of-interest laws that prevent them from working for companies that do business with the Los Angeles school district.

Of the seven current board members, only Quezada holds another job: manager of community relations and Hispanic marketing for Carnation Co.

Weintraub said she can afford to serve on the school board because her husband is a successful physician but that positions on the board should not be limited to those who do not need the money.

Peters, former superintendent of schools in Beverly Hills, said he understood “the tremendous responsibility these people bear” but that “this really should be considered by the Legislature.”