MISSION VIEJO : 20 Non-Teachers May Face Layoffs

The Saddleback Valley Unified school board will vote tonight on whether to order administrators to create a list of non-teaching employees to be laid off if proposed cuts in the state education budget are enacted.

Ironically, the board tonight also is expected to vote to increase their own salaries from $400 to $750 a month and to approve a pay increase for non-teaching employees that will cost the district $800,000 this year.

Supt. Peter A. Hartman said about 20 of the district’s 600 non-teaching employees probably will lose their jobs this year if Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed $2-billion cut in the state education budget is passed by the Legislature.

“These are not major layoffs, although obviously to the people who are caught, they will be,” Hartman said.

Ken Anderson, a district spokesman, said that under Wilson’s budget, the district would probably have to cut between $400,000 and $1 million from its $100-million budget. The district has budgeted $77 million for salaries and benefits this year.

“In my 33 years in education, this financial situation is the worst I have ever seen,” Anderson said. He added that all non-essential spending, such as most employee travel, has already been eliminated.

Meanwhile, the proposal to raise the five board members’ salaries would be retroactive to July 1 and would reportedly cost the district $21,000 annually.

Board President R. Kent Hann said he will vote for the board’s pay increase regardless of any possible layoffs, noting that it is only the second increase the board has received in the district’s 17-year history. He said members of other local school boards already receive $750 a month.

“There is an argument that the board should bite the bullet itself,” he said. “But we are the district’s lowest-paid employees, and I think it would be a little bit much to ask us to shoulder the entire burden when every other group is receiving a raise.

“And when you consider the time we put in, I think we are grossly underpaid,” he said.

Margaret Belderson, local president of the California School Employees Assn., the non-teaching employees union, said the group is not likely to fight any layoffs. The 600 non-teaching employees recently negotiated a 2% permanent salary increase and a 3% temporary increase, as well as a bonus of 1.75% of their annual salary.

“The district informed us of (a possible layoff) a month ago and has proceeded with our knowledge,” Belderson said.

Hartman also said that up to five of the district’s 1,100 teachers could be laid off if cuts are made, but no proposal related to that has been presented to the board. By state law, any teachers who will not be rehired next year will have to be notified by March 15.

This would be the district’s third layoff in 10 years. In 1982-83, 143 employees lost their jobs when Gov. George Deukmejian slashed the state budget. In 1984, five physical education teachers were fired when the district eliminated part of that program.