Orange Unified Teachers Agree to 2.6% Pay Cut : Education: Salary decrease is included in contract approved by the school board. Other districts in the county say they have no immediate plans to do the same.

Attempting to avoid possible layoffs, teachers in the Orange Unified School District have agreed to a 2.6% pay cut, union president Ruby Penner said.

The 1,140-member Orange Unified Education Assn. agreed to the pay cut Monday, and the contract was unanimously approved by the school board Thursday.

“There are no layoffs in this agreement,” Penner said. “All current teachers will maintain their jobs.”

The board on Thursday also voted to cut the salaries of four top administrators by the same 2.6%.

The average salary for teachers in the district is about $36,800, said one district official. A 2.6% pay cut would amount to almost $1,000 a year, Penner said.

The lowest base salary for entering teachers is $23,500.

Interim Supt. Richard Donoghue said, “These were tough negotiations, but everyone approached it professionally and in a problem-solving mode.”

But some parents said teachers also should agree to cuts in their health plan.

Diane Schwartz, who has two children in the district, said she was angry that teachers were not forced to pay for part of their health coverage.

“The pay cut is a Band-Aid over our district health plan,” Schwartz said. “We keep cutting at the benefits of the children and not against the teachers.”

Other school districts in Orange County said they have no immediate plans to reduce teacher salaries, regardless of the impact of the state budget, which is yet to be passed.

John W. Nicoll, superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, said in lieu of salary cuts, the district laid off 60 teachers, 50 non-teaching employees and 15 administrators, saving a total of $3.5 million.

“We have made the lions’ share of cuts for the fall,” Nicoll said, adding that his school district relies heavily on property tax revenue. “The lowering of our property values warned us that cuts would occur.”

Huntington Beach Union High School District has made even larger cuts, amounting to more than $5 million, said Supt. David Hagen.

“We had to increase classroom size to an average of 36 students,” Hagen said. “Our teachers have not received a raise in two years, and we feel that is enough of a cut.”

Officials of some of the poorer school districts, such as Anaheim Union High School District, which has 17 schools and 25,000 students, say they are suffering enough.

Supt. Cynthia F. Grennan expressed outrage at the state budget stalemate and the effect it has on their unique needs.

“I used to think we lived in a country that believed in public education,” Grennan said. “It isn’t fair to a school district like ours, that has half of the students on lunch programs and more than 60 different languages spoken here.”

Grennan also said the school district has never recommended salary cuts, but would not rule out the possibility of staff reductions.

“If the worst comes, we will go to the community and tell them there are going to be a number of services we can’t provide and I don’t know what they are at this time.”

Nicoll said he remembers a similar stalemate in 1985.

“We cut back and froze salaries and ended up laying off more than 100 people,” Nicoll said. “This time we won’t know what to do until those rascals quit fiddlin’ around.”