SOUTH BAY NEWS : Union Seeks School Personnel Panel : Education: Petition forces an election by non-teaching employees on independent commission to oversee promotions.

A union for Centinela Valley School District workers has filed a petition to force the school board to create a personnel commission that would oversee promotions.

Chapter 47 of the California School Employees Assn., which represents Centinela Valley clerks, maintenance workers, cafeteria workers and other non-teaching employees, submitted the petition to the board of trustees recently. . District regulations require the board to schedule an election within four months so employees may vote on the issue.

A merit system, proponents say, would standardize tests and performance requirements used to promote employees.

The personnel commission would have three members: one chosen by the school board, one by the union and the third chosen by the other two members. It would be independent of Supt. Joseph Carrillo and the board.

Relations between the union and the board have been strained for the last year.

Members remain angry about the board’s decision to reduce their work--and consequently their pay--from 12 months to 10 or 11 months a year.

The board of trustees also lowered the cap on its contribution to the union’s health benefits from $4,550 to $3,900.

“It used to be that we were all in the same boat,” union President Joan Harmon said. “If we took a 10% pay cut, then they (administration) did too. Now you feel like a yacht is pulling a rowboat--and we’re the rowboat.”

Carrillo said that cuts in the classified employee staff and their salaries were necessary and that more cuts may be required.

“It is the perception of CSEA bargaining unit members that . . . the classified employees continue to suffer unfair workloads, and unnecessary manipulation of their jobs and duties,” said a letter submitted to the board by J. Travers Devine, union representative.

“Justified or not, the perception is that normalization of a reasonable and productive relationship between the district and its employees will not occur under the present administration,” Devine wrote.

Union and administration officials dispute how much it would cost to set up the commission. “This is happening out of frustration for economic measures . . . which neither employer nor employees have control over,” Carrillo said. “They’re looking for something that might help them from impending layoffs. But if you’re on a fixed income--and the district is--you cannot continue with the same work force intact.”

The district adopted a $20.9-million budget last year that included 31 layoffs and pay cuts for 131 non-teaching employees.

The plan to set up a commission is sure to backfire, Carrillo said, because if the board has to find money to create a personnel commission, it will most likely do so by laying off employees.

“The average employee who works a regular eight-hour day makes about $27,000 a year,” Carrillo said. “If you take that and divide it into $150,000, that’s 5.5 people they’re saying they’ll do without.”

Union officials said a personnel commission would cost the district $40,000 to $50,000 a year. Devine said that under an agreement between the district and the union, commission members are allowed a stipend of $50 per meeting but no more than $200 per month. The commission would hire a director of classified personnel and a secretary.

Carrillo said the figure would be closer to $150,000 to $180,000 yearly, including benefits, office space and supplies.

Harmon said a personnel commission may not prevent layoffs, but it could lead to more discussion before decisions are made.

For example, she said, the administration recommended and the board voted to lay off all groundskeepers last year, rather than spread layoffs through the ranks of school employees.

“Instead of cutting the maintenance and operation evenly, they laid off all of the groundskeepers, the whole classification,” Harmon said. “What you have now are leaky toilets, lights that are burned out and the maintenance staff so busy picking up trash that they don’t have time for repairs.”