Teachers Get 2 Days Off for Taking Pay Cut : Schools: Each of three remaining checks will be $100 short, as Inglewood district cuts expenses through end of year.

The Inglewood Unified School District can cut teacher pay to meet its bills but not without giving the teachers time off, according to a recent decision by the state Public Employment Relations Board.

As part of a settlement it has worked out with the teachers and the district, the state board has told the district to give teachers two days off in exchange for the 1% pay cut imposed by the district’s governing board.

The district ordered the pay cut in April, after the district discovered it would not be able to pay its bills through the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. Hard hit by recession and a resulting loss of tax revenue, Inglewood is among a handful of Los Angeles County school districts that are so close to insolvency that their spending is being monitored by county education officials.

Every employee, including Supt. George J. McKenna, had to take the salary cut. However, the teachers were the only employees who did not receive furlough days in exchange. The district said it could not give the teachers time off because it could not afford to pay substitutes.

The pay cut was retroactive to the beginning of the school year, but there were only three remaining paydays until the current school year ends. The 1% cut is coming out of the remaining three paychecks.

That means a teacher with six years of experience and a master’s degree who earns $30,200 annually would lose about $100 from each of the remaining paychecks.

The Inglewood Teachers Assn. filed a protest with the employment relations board. Under the terms of the settlement, teachers will not have to work the first day of the next school year. It is an administrative day on which the students do not attend. Teachers also will get to skip the same day in the 1995-96 school year.

Furthermore, the settlement states that if classified employees such as janitors and clerks win the lawsuit they have filed with the board, the teachers’ lost pay will be restored.

The classified employees are arguing that the district had no right to arbitrarily cut pay without negotiating with employee union groups. No hearing date has been set for the classified employee groups to present their case to the board.