IRVINE : School Board Starts Teacher, Staff Layoffs

The Irvine Unified School District Board of Education has begun the process of laying off 68 teachers and other certified employees by the end of the school year.

The district, faced with its fourth straight year of funding problems and cutbacks, has never laid off a teacher.

“I don’t think any of us up here thought this day would come,” board President Margie Wakeham said as tears welled in her eyes. “I can’t tell you what pain I’m experiencing tonight.”

The school district will face a shortfall of between $2 million and $3.2 million in its projected $95 million budget for the 1993-94 school year unless officials cut staffing or programs, Deputy Supt. Paul H. Reed said. How much the district will have to cut depends on how much funding comes from the state, he said.

The deficit predictions assume that no district employee receives a raise next year, Reed said. But even maintaining current programs will cost the district more next year as teachers receive automatic salary adjustments for seniority and utilities and other costs go up, he said.

“We’re going to have to look for a fourth year of cuts,” he said.

District Supt. David E. Brown recommended that the board approve the layoff process to meet a state-mandated March 15 deadline. The district must notify teachers by that date in order to lay them off for the following school year. If the district moves ahead with the layoffs, the 68 employees will receive a final layoff notice in mid-May.

Board member Greg Smith pointed out that the district doesn’t know how much funding will come from the state for the 1993-94 budget and that voting to lay off teachers “puts the cart before the horse.” However, he said he was reluctantly casting his vote for the layoffs so the district can meet the March 15 notification deadline.

Board member Tom Burnham blamed the teachers’ union for making the layoff vote necessary. The Irvine Teachers Assn. has been negotiating unsuccessfully with district administrators for a year, he said.

The union has not been “willing to own up to the sacrifices we all have to share,” Burnham said. “Let’s come to an agreement and knock off the games.”

Teachers are unhappy with the way district administrators have made budget cuts, said Barbara Dresel, president of the Irvine Teachers Assn. Administrators asked teachers to make suggestions for savings, but none of them have been followed, she said.

Contract negotiations have dragged on because the district insists that the union decide how to cut $1.4 million to $2 million in teacher costs, Dresel said. The district’s position has been that since teachers’ salaries make up 65% of the budget, they should shoulder 65% of the deficit, she said.

“They won’t offer anything,” Dresel said. “They keep telling us to tell them how we want to take our medicine.”

Among the teachers who could be laid off, 21 are in elementary schools, 19 in the middle schools, 24 in the high schools, and one is in a technology support position. In addition, three nurses would be laid off.

The board also voted Tuesday night to delete four vacant administrative positions, including the deputy superintendent for student services, from next year’s budget.