Union Offers Radical Plan on Schools’ Crisis : Education: It would slash management rolls, freeze hiring and pay top administrators the same as teachers. It is designed to help the district trim $400 million from its budget.

Saying it cannot be business as usual in the midst of a crisis, United Teachers-Los Angeles proposed a radical plan Tuesday that would slash middle management, freeze hiring, and pay top administrators the same as teachers in order to save the financially beleaguered Los Angeles Unified School District hundreds of millions of dollars, officials said.

The plan, devised by a committee of UTLA members, detailed short-term emergency measures to help the district grapple with a fiscal crisis forcing it to trim at least $400 million from next year’s budget. But the proposal also suggested ways to bring new money into the district as well as long-term alternatives that union officials say could permanently restructure the nation’s second-largest school system.

“This is not just about saving money,” UTLA President Helen Bernstein said at a press conference. “It’s about running the district in a more efficient way.”

Copies of the plan were mailed Tuesday to the Los Angeles school board’s seven members, union officials said.

Though Bernstein could not give a specific figure, she said the union’s short-term proposals could potentially save the district hundreds of millions of dollars by consolidating administrative duties, redeploying management personnel to the classroom, and reducing the salaries of the district’s highest-paid administrators.

Among the suggested temporary solutions was a one-year hiring freeze for teachers, administrators and non-certificated employees except in specific cases; shifting payroll expenses from the district to the Los Angeles County superintendent of schools for a savings of $5.7 million; and having the Los Angeles Police Department take over school security for one year at a savings of $25 million. Police Department officials could not be reached for comment.

The proposal also called for no district employee, including the district superintendent, to earn more in the next fiscal year than the highest-paid teacher on the regular pay schedule--a salary of $52,000, according to union officials. “You could save $40 million from that alone,” said Bernstein.

But some of the biggest savings would come from a restructuring of the district, which Bernstein said would save $100 million and create a new organizational model that could remain in place long after the current fiscal crisis is resolved.

“We looked at the district in totality (and decided) not to just take the present system and slash it, but to throw it away and start all over again,” Bernstein said.

Under the plan, the senior level of administration below Supt. Bill Anton would be reduced from about 10 to four positions that would be filled by assistant superintendents who would oversee broadly defined areas ranging from technology to planning.

The union also proposed eliminating most regional and district offices, replacing them with “educational communities,” each of which would be made up of about 30,000 students from kindergarten through high school. Each community would have a coordinator and utilize school-based staff to perform administrative duties.

All nonessential district administrators and staffs could be reassigned to work at district schools, said Bernstein. She added that an outside consulting firm could be brought in to better determine how many could be reassigned.

Bernstein said the system model allows flexibility so positions and programs could be re-established as funds materialize to pay for them, said Bernstein. But the immediate focus, she said, has to remain on the classroom.

A school system “needs students, it needs teachers, and it needs money. That’s it,” Bernstein said. “Everything else is an add-on.”

But Warren Furutani, president of the Los Angeles school board, said that a major restructuring of the entire school system may not be possible in time for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. “The timing is a problem,” said Furutani, noting that restructuring models are being considered for the future.

He added that cuts in administration are being considered but that the district must preserve enough of a management structure to run the district effectively.

“We’ve been reducing administration for the last few years . . . and I’m open to looking at more (cuts),” Furutani said. But “even as we survive this difficult time, we still need a support system for our schools.”

Eli Brent, president of the 2,000-member Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, said he had not seen UTLA’s plan and could not say whether he would support it. But he noted that the average hourly rate for certificated management employees is less than the wage earned by a senior teacher being paid the maximum hourly rate.

“The district can’t get the money for the deficit off the backs of administrators,” Brent said.

Nearly 1,200 administrative positions have been cut from the district’s central offices since the 1988-89 fiscal year, but Bernstein said those cuts are not enough. She added that teachers would not begin to consider reductions in their salaries until they see that the district has cut administration as much as possible, pursued ways to bring more revenue into the district, and considered cutting extracurricular programs.