L.A. Schools, Teachers Near Accord on Pact : Education: The proposed contract would guarantee repayment of 3% cut from salaries to help balance district budget.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is close to reaching an agreement with its teachers on a contract that would head off a possible strike this spring.

The proposed agreement, which could be voted on by teachers’ union members next week, would guarantee that over the next several years teachers will be paid back the 3% that was cut from all employees’ salaries to help balance the district’s budget this year.

In addition, teachers would begin the next school year with their salaries restored to last year’s level, a provision that district officials say could cost the system up to $100 million if it is extended to all employees. The cost to the district of restoring teacher salaries to last year’s level would be about $70 million.

“Financially, this tentative agreement is not what we want or deserve,” union President Helen Bernstein said in a letter to teachers announcing the proposed settlement. “However, after intensive negotiations, I am firmly convinced that the district will not change the tentative agreement at this time.”

Details of the package are still being worked out, but union leaders said they hope deliberations can be wrapped up in time to submit the plan to a vote of UTLA’s 30,000 members by Tuesday.

The settlement would not affect teacher pay for this year, “but it will mean we don’t have to start negotiations on a new contract next July still trying to get back to ground zero,” said UTLA spokeswoman Catherine Carey.

The school board has tentatively approved the settlement, and is expected to formally ratify it in a private meeting today.

Sources close to the contract talks said the seven-member board has been bitterly divided over the package. The four UTLA-supported members advocate it as a way to heal the rift between the district and its employees over the pay cut as well as to unite the sides to lobby Sacramento more effectively for more funding, sources said.

“There’s been so much unhappiness about the budget (cuts), I think its important that we have some kind of closure with employees and get together to work on these broader issues that are so important to the district,” said board member Jeff Horton. “The teachers and their organization are the core of our political strength.”

Horton, along with Mark Slavkin, Julie Korenstein and board President Warren Furutani are expected to vote for the package.

But the three board members who have opposed the settlement--Barbara Boudreaux, Leticia Quezada and Roberta Weintraub--worry that it may force deeper cuts in campus spending next year and cost the district credibility among state legislators, who have blamed past teacher pay raises for the district’s current crisis.

Both sides acknowledge that employee salaries may be targeted for cuts again next year if the district’s financial condition does not improve. The pending agreement with the teachers would expire at the end of June. It locks in the pay restoration only until next September and does not preclude another pay cut next year.

This fall, the school board cut the salaries of all the district’s 58,000 full-time employees to help close a $275-million gap in its $3.9-billion budget. The prospect of reduced funding from Sacramento because of the state’s escalating fiscal crisis means the district will likely face a shortfall again next year.

The teachers have been working without a formal contract since July, when their three-year agreement that had delivered 8% annual raises expired. Contract talks between the union and the district collapsed in October and the school board, bolstered by the endorsement of an independent fact-finding panel, voted unanimously in November to impose the 3% cut and unpaid furloughs of two to five days.

Last month, teachers voted overwhelmingly not to strike but to reject the cut and stay on the job while negotiations resumed. Union leaders had recommended against a strike, which could have run through the district’s seven-week winter recess and cost teachers up to 10 weeks of pay.

The union later pledged that without an agreement they would begin a work slowdown that had been scheduled to take effect today. With such an action, teachers would have refused to participate in unpaid activities, jeopardizing holiday programs and forcing cancellation of many winter recess activities.

District and union negotiators have been engaged in intensive talks since Dec. 2, meeting through the night Tuesday and through Wednesday morning before agreeing in principle to the major economic provisions of the proposed settlement. Late Wednesday, talks stalled over details of the schedule of the proposed salary repayment, but the hitch did not appear serious enough to derail the agreement.

“The timing is critical . . . we need to wrap this up” and allow teachers to vote on the contract before school ends for the winter break Dec. 20, Furutani said.

Times staff writer Henry Chu contributed to this story.