Pay Cuts Urged for All School Workers : Education: Panel says part of Los Angeles district’s budget problems can be laid to hefty salary increases.

A fact-finding panel overseeing the Los Angeles Unified School District’s contract negotiations has blamed hefty employee pay hikes, in part, for the district’s mounting budget woes and recommended that all employees take a pay cut this year to help balance the district’s budget.

District salaries have grown by more than 90% since 1983--compared to a 52% pay increase for professionals in private industry and a 39% overall raise for all employees in private industry, the panel’s report says.

The pay hikes by the district have far outstripped the 50% growth in cost-of-living adjustments the district has been granted by the state, forcing the district to cut into other programs and services to meet its payroll each year, according to the report.

“The extremely favorable salary treatment afforded all district employees over the past several years places the employees in the position where they can and should be expected to make a temporary sacrifice to keep the district fiscally afloat,” the report says.

The union representing 1,700 principals and other administrators has already agreed to accept a one-year pay cut amounting to about 6.5% for 1991-92, saving the district about $8 million. But United Teachers-Los Angeles, which represents 35,000 employees, has resisted a pay cut proposal and is now deadlocked in its negotiations.

Union President Helen Bernstein said she is suspicious of the report’s findings, saying they are based on information provided by the district and the group representing administrators--both of which have been at odds with the teachers union for years.

Although teachers have won significant pay increases in the past several years, there were several years in the 1970s when they got no raises, Bernstein said. “We started out so far behind, that the increase is not nearly as significant as it appears,” she said.

The district has asked all employees to accept 3% pay cuts--to be repaid next year--and furloughs ranging from two to five days. That would save more than $72 million this year, but would require the district to come up with almost $150 million to restore the reductions next year.

School board President Warren Furutani said that next year, despite the worsening budget situation in Sacramento, the district should receive $150 million that was diverted from education spending to help balance the state’s budget this year. That money would be earmarked to restore employee pay cuts, he said.

The report by the three-member panel, which includes a state mediator and negotiators for the district and Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, the union representing principals, calls the pay cut offer “fair and reasonable” in light of the district’s funding crisis. If the district cannot cut its payroll costs, it risks plunging into insolvency, the report says.

According to the report, the district pays its teachers more per student than any other in the county except Beverly Hills. Los Angeles administrators are the highest paid in the county, but the district spends a smaller percentage of its total budget on administration than any school system in the county and most other large districts in the state, the report says.

Although $626 million has been cut from district budgets during the past three years, employees have been largely shielded from the economic impact of those cuts, and when they have suffered salary losses, classified workers and administrators have taken more than their proportionate share, and teachers less, the report concludes.

A separate fact-finding panel is now overseeing negotiations between UTLA and the district, and is expected to issue its report next week. The reports are not binding on either the district or the union. In 1987 and 1989, the school board granted salary hikes in excess of the fact-finder recommendations.

But AALA President Eli Brent called the report fair and impartial, and said it supports his group’s claim that there is no administrative fat in the district.

“Nobody’s happy about a pay cut,” said Brent. “But we’re willing to take a cut to not destroy the infrastructure of the school system.

“It’s time to give back a little, to do something for the good of the district and the kids, so we can put this all behind us and get back to the business of education.”

The administrators’ one-year contract includes a 3% salary cut--which is slated to be repaid by the district, with interest, next year--a five-day unpaid furlough that will cost administrators about 2.5%, and a loss of differential payments that will result in a 1% salary loss.

Furutani praised AALA for accepting the cuts to help balance the district budget, which was slashed by more than $275 million to accommodate a drop-off in state funding this year.

“No one’s happy with the contract, but I appreciate AALA’s willingness to work with the district during this very difficult year,” Furutani said.