L.A. School Budget OKd; Deep Pay Cuts Included

After a contentious debate over eleventh-hour spending cuts, the Los Angeles Board of Education ended months of fiscal turmoil Friday by adopting a final budget of $3.9 billion. But it could not avoid slicing $400 million in expenditures, including painful pay reductions of 9% this year for teachers and most employees.

The board voted 6 to 1 to approve the spending plan, which must be submitted to the Los Angeles County Office of Education by Monday to meet a state deadline.

But the final moments leading to their decision proved to be as tense as the weeks of debate that preceded it, with accusations of political grandstanding hurled at two board members who said they would not approve the budget.

“The right thing to do is to unite. . . . That means seven votes,” said board President Leticia Quezada, who was among those voting for the fiscal package. “Anything less than that says to me the battle continues, not in Sacramento, but among ourselves.”

In the end, board member Julie Korenstein was the lone vote against the budget. Mark Slavkin, who initially said he would oppose it, voted yes after the board adopted his amendment asking district officials to look into measures, including a management audit, that would result in savings.

The rancorous meeting illustrated the unprecedented tensions that have rocked the nation’s second-largest school system as it struggles to solve its worst fiscal crisis.

To balance its budget preliminarily in June, the board proposed saving $247 million by cutting employee pay 6% to 16.5% this year. The graduated scale would take the least from the lowest-paid workers and the most from its highest-paid administrators.

But the plan provoked ire throughout the district, with its largest union, United Teachers-Los Angeles, threatening to strike and launching an aggressive campaign to protest the reduction.

On Friday, the board cut 78 positions, eliminated several offices--including the Office of Elementary Instruction, which provided technical assistance to schools--and reduced some program funding to pare $4.3 million from its budget and reduce the amount of the pay cuts. It was unclear how many layoffs might result from the lost positions.

Along with unanticipated state revenue and $46 million in reductions previously approved by the board, cuts in employee compensation totaled $178 million, said Robert Booker, the district’s chief financial officer.

In adopting a final balanced budget, the board also approved what officials say is the district’s final compensation offers to its eight bargaining units.

Besides the 9% pay cut for teachers and most administrators, the district’s lowest-paid employees will be asked to sustain cuts up to 6.5%--although some workers’ pay will not be cut. The highest-paid administrators--those earning more than $90,000 a year--will see their pay reduced 11.5%. The reductions would come on top of a 3% cut imposed last year on the district’s 58,000 full-time employees.

The cuts will begin to show up in this month’s paychecks, officials said.

UTLA President Helen Bernstein called the proposed reduction, which will cause teachers to earn 12% less than they did two years ago, unacceptable. But she said she is hopeful that negotiations will produce a better offer and avert a strike.

“We have a number of items on the table we feel will significantly improve the offer,” Bernstein said. “Our negotiators have been directed to do everything that’s prudent to avoid a strike. But if (the district) gives us no choice, then we have no choice.”

Bernstein added that she believes it is unlawful for the district to begin implementing the pay cut before an impasse in negotiations has been declared. UTLA’s board of directors will meet Monday to receive a report on the board’s actions, she said. A week later, the union’s House of Representatives will vote on whether to recommend approval of an agreement or authorize a strike vote.

Quezada said the board had done all it could to reduce the pay cuts, and that she hoped teachers would remember its efforts if asked to consider a strike. “I can look any school teacher in the face and say we have cut everything we can,” Quezada said. “I’m asking teachers to think twice about the consequences of a strike because the district has no more money, and if they go on strike, they will make it worse.”

Approval of the budget appeared near collapse Friday during the board’s debate over how to trim the pay cuts. Slavkin said he believed that the district had not done all it could to reduce administrative spending and other programs, while Korenstein argued that approving the drastic cuts would essentially absolve the state of its responsibility to fund education adequately.

“I will not balance our budget on the backs of our employees,” Korenstein said. “If we vote yes, we’re in fact telling the state we’re willing to cut year after year after year.”

But Quezada said the district ran the risk of being declared insolvent if it did not approve the budget cuts. “That to me is (political) posturing,” she said of Korenstein’s objections. “It’s irresponsible and it’s looking for the easy way out.”

Slavkin relented after his colleagues approved an amendment calling on district staff to consider such measures as cutting off funds for internal communication organs, limiting the use of district-owned cars, and hiring an outside firm to conduct a management audit of the school system.

Booker, the district’s chief financial officer, cautioned that even with a balanced spending plan for this year, the district’s financial future remains bleak. “I wish I could say to you that adoption of this budget takes the district out of fiscal concerns forever,” Booker said. “It does not.”