School Workers Brace for Cuts and Hope to Survive

Diane Zavala, a typist at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles, told her mother that she may have to move back home. Andre Giacomelli, an electronics inspector who has worked 32 years in the Los Angeles school district, says he will probably have to delay retirement. And Terri Arnold, an elementary school principal, says she has begun teaching lessons in thrift to her 4-year-old child.

“When I went into (this profession), I knew I was not going to make a fortune,” said Arnold, who like thousands of other school employees is facing a pay loss because of massive budget cuts. “But I never thought I’d be taking steps backwards.”

Such is the grim outlook taking hold on the front lines of the nation’s second-largest public school system.

As Los Angeles Unified School District leaders struggle to assess the impact of the newly signed state budget, their employees are facing pay cuts believed to be the worst suffered by any school system in the nation. As they wait to see when--and how deep--the cuts will be, they contemplate how to survive.

District officials eliminated offices and slashed positions in June to help make up a $400-million shortfall and bring this year’s $3.9-billion budget into balance. But the bulk of the fiscal burden is being placed on the district’s more than 58,000 employees, who have been asked to take pay cuts ranging from 6% to 16.5%.

The district’s work force, the fourth-largest in the county, includes about 30,000 teachers, counselors and librarians, about 24,000 carpenters, secretaries, custodians and other classified employees, and about 4,000 principals and other administrative employees with teaching certificates working outside the classroom.

The proposed pay cuts, to be achieved through a combination of unpaid days off and reductions in base salary, would be in addition to a 3% pay cut imposed on workers last year. The district is also proposing changes in employee medical coverage to save about $23 million.

Supt. Bill Anton has explained that the pay cuts are being offered as an alternative to massive layoffs and that the plan, which divides employees into four tiers, is designed to inflict the least pain on the lowest-paid workers.

Nonetheless, the specter of pay cuts has caused unprecedented tensions within the mammoth school system, pitting union against union and worker against supervisor. Mayor Tom Bradley has offered to help mediate to avoid a potential teachers strike, and former state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp is chairing an independent commission that will review district finances and report its initial findings this month.

While negotiations continue behind the scenes, those whose lives could be affected are bracing themselves for hardships they fear are coming. “Starve a little now,” a commentary in a recent issue of United Teachers-Los Angeles’ newspaper warned, “so you can manage to survive if the worst comes to pass.”

Diane Zavala, the school office worker, said she is trying to get ready for hard times. But “it’s kind of like an earthquake,” she said. “You try to prepare for it but you don’t know how big it’s going to be. It’s scary, just waiting.”

Money was scarce enough this past year, said Zavala, a single mother who went to work for the school system six years ago after being laid off by a nonprofit foundation. She struggles to support herself and her 11-year-old daughter on wages of $12.30 an hour. After the rent, insurance and car payment, Zavala said, she is left with about $100 until the next payday, a month away.

Now, facing a possible 11.5% drop in pay, Zavala says she knows things can only get worse. She postponed her June wedding until she is more certain of her financial situation. She took out a loan to pay off the debts on her credit cards. And she has warned her landlord she may not be able to give much notice if she suddenly has to move.

“If worse comes to worst, I can go home and live with five other people in a two-bedroom house,” Zavala said. “I’m not going to be homeless. I have family. But there are a lot of people who have nowhere to go.”

Terri Arnold, principal of Pacific Palisades Elementary School, is also a single mother. She earns more than Zavala--about $60,000 a year--but she is no less worried.

“The preschool doesn’t understand that you don’t have money after they cut your salary 17%,” said Arnold, who pays $410 a month for her daughter’s day care. “I have no backup. I’ve got to make it work.”

Arnold began to strategize in April after learning about the severity of the district’s budget crunch. She refinanced her home to lower her mortgage payment and bought a computer so she could supplement her income by doing word processing. Arnold also sat her young daughter down for a lesson she never thought she’d have to teach so soon.

“I put her on an allowance and told her to start saving,” said Arnold, who gives her daughter 50 cents a week. “I’ve discussed it with her and told her I can’t buy everything she feels she needs. I told her I’ll buy her the essentials when I can afford it.”

Arnold worries about the impact the fiscal crisis will have, not only on her child, but on children throughout the district.

“(It) is frightening because no matter how hard you try to keep the cuts away from them,” Arnold said, “it does filter down to the children.”

Many of the district’s employees have children in its schools. For those children, the pending pay cuts may prove to be a double-edged sword. Their parents say they will feel the brunt of the budget crisis not only in crowded, under-supplied classrooms, but also in their own homes, where they may see that there is not enough money to pay bills or to buy school clothes.

“It affects their self-esteem, their studying,” said Linda Caffery, a clerk-stenographer at Sun Valley Junior High School and mother of three children. “It’s good to learn thriftiness but kids shouldn’t have this kind of stress. They have enough.”

Her 15-year-old daughter has not complained--about the school pictures Caffery could not buy last year and the concert tickets she could not pay for. Nevertheless, “I’m sure it’s affected her,” Caffery said. “I’m sure there were times she wanted to ask me for something but didn’t because there was no money.”

Caffery, who is supporting two children still living at home, said she already has difficulty surviving on her current pay of $13.35 an hour. “I haven’t bought meat for a while because I couldn’t afford it,” she said. “I went to the market last night. (The grocery bill) was $40--and no meat again.”

Caffery is worried that an agreement to temporarily restore pay that employees lost last year may work to her detriment, vaulting her onto a higher tier in the pay-cut scale. If that happens, she could wind up suffering the same reduction as higher-paid teachers and administrators, dropping her income 17% below what it was two years ago.

A cut that deep would mean sacrificing her dreams of a nice home in a better neighborhood.

“I worked my way up out of welfare,” said Caffery, who began her district career as a clerk. “I was hoping to move this year.”

Andre Giacomelli, 61, is one longtime employee who says it would be better for the district to lay off some of its work force and slash deeper into administration than to impose pay cuts and furloughs on all its workers.

An electronics inspector who began working for the district in 1960, Giacomelli said he had planned to retire in two years and pay off his home a year later. Both plans are now on hold.

“It’s going to take six to 10 years to get back what we lost,” said Giacomelli, who thinks he will have to stay on the job until he is at least 65. “I feel betrayed. I gave all these years to the district and now they’re chopping me down.”

To shore up their income, Giacomelli said, his wife recently took a minimum-wage job passing out product samples at a grocery store. Though he figures his pay will drop to about $39,000 after a 14% pay cut this year, Giacomelli says he believes they will get by if he and his wife work. Still, he said, it hurts.

“Retirement, that’s what I lived for,” Giacomelli said. “I put my time in and now I’m still going to have to work.”

Still, despite the impending hardships, many district workers say they are glad just to be employed.

Kathy Masaoka, a continuation high school teacher, watched recently as the General Motors plant where her husband worked shut down.

“When people are being laid off everywhere, I think we are lucky to have a job,” said Masaoka, who has worked for the district about 16 years. “It’s not just education (being cut). It’s all the services.”

Masaoka said she and her husband have shelved plans to add on to their home, and their family sticks to the bargain racks when they go shopping. But for the most part, Masaoka said, she is trying not to dwell on the financial difficulties that may lie ahead.

“I don’t think we’re in danger of losing the house, but it’s going to be very difficult,” said Masaoka, who has two children. “It’s hard living on just my income, and being less than it was before we’ll just make it. . . . We can’t survive if (my husband) doesn’t get a job.”

Such uncertainty has a direct impact on job performance, said Jerry Jellison, a USC professor and social psychologist. Employees “start to perceive themselves as being treated inequitably,” he said. “They tend to switch all the commitment they had invested in their jobs over to other things.”

Floyd Bortoluzzi, a district carpenter, says his frustration with school officials and state politicians has altered his attitude.

“I don’t really care about my job anymore,” said Bortoluzzi, a 10-year district employee. “There were times when I used to say, ‘Hey, so you work a couple minutes over and complete the job.’ Now (when) it’s five minutes to 4, (it’s) time to put my tools up. And I walk away. I’m not going to give them the extra time anymore.”