Teachers Decry School Board’s Priorities in Cutting Budget : Education: Protesters assert that L.A. Unified plan protects administrative jobs by sacrificing quality in classrooms. Union opposes a proposed reduction in members’ pay.

Dressed in black and toting placards, teachers throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District protested Monday to condemn a school system they say has placed a higher priority on preserving administrative jobs than on looking after the interests of children.

Scores of faculty members heeded a call by United Teachers-Los Angeles to stage protests prior to the start of the school day, showing their outrage at $400 million in budget cuts approved last week that would slash employee salaries as well as reduce maintenance and several district offices.

“We’re mourning the death of public education in Los Angeles,” said Barbara Knight, a counselor at John Marshall High School, who was one of approximately 100 faculty members to participate in a demonstration at that campus.

Said UTLA President Helen Bernstein: “To cut our pay 12% while you maintain the bureaucracy is not right. We’re not going to accept it. . . . If the public doesn’t want to pay for education, it’s not up to teachers to subsidize it.”

The Los Angeles Board of Education last Thursday gingerly balanced its $3.8-billion budget for next year, in large part by counting on yet-to-be negotiated cuts in employee salaries that could save the district $247.3 million.

The board eliminated offices, slashed hundreds of non-teaching positions and cut maintenance to make up the massive shortfall. Board members said they will try to minimize cuts in employee compensation.

But teachers said the district has not done enough to cut areas not essential to the classroom. Some cited the board’s decision to save its field representatives as an example.

“We know times are tough,” said Tom Marshall, an auto shop teacher. “We’d take a cut if we thought (the district had) stripped down to bare-bones and all cuts were made that don’t affect the classroom.” But upon seeing some of the board’s decisions, Marshall said, “the first thing that popped in my head is they’re protecting the empire, and the classroom is second.”

If the $247.3-million pay cut is implemented, Bernstein said teachers would suffer approximately a 12% salary reduction, dropping their pay scale ranking from third to 30th in Los Angeles County. District budget analysts, however, say that until contract negotiations are completed, they cannot determine what percentage pay cut teachers or other employees would actually take.

UTLA’s current contract expires Wednesday, and until then teachers can take no job action affecting the classroom. But Bernstein warned that if officials don’t further slash management positions and extracurricular programs before tapping employee salaries, Monday’s demonstrations could be followed by a strike during the next school year.

“If this is the last best offer, these people are not going to be at work,” she said of UTLA’s members.

Earlier this month, the teacher’s union proposed its own plan to save the district money through such temporary measures as a hiring freeze and reductions in top administrators’ salaries. It also proposed extensive restructuring of the district, slashing middle management and putting much of the administration of the nation’s second-largest school system in the hands of employees based at schools.

The union’s plan has drawn criticism from employee bargaining units representing maintenance and clerical workers, skilled crafts workers, and teaching aides, who say it forces their members to bear the brunt of budget cuts--a charge that UTLA officials deny. Four of the units have formed an alliance to make sure that the sacrifices are equally shared by all the district’s workers.