Agreement That Reduces Teachers’ Pay Is Reached : Education: Conejo district and union tentatively approve a two-year contract that will result in a 4% total cut.

Conejo Valley school officials and teachers have reached tentative agreement on a two-year contract that would reduce teachers’ pay by 3% and cut their work year by two days.

The shortened work calendar for teachers will result in a 4% total pay cut, officials said. The agreement was reached Wednesday after two days of negotiations with a state-appointed mediator. The two sides declared an impasse last month.

“I would say we’re grudgingly accepting a pay cut,” said John Uelmen, president of the Unified Assn. of Conejo Teachers, which represents the Conejo Valley Unified School District’s 683 teachers. “Nobody is happy to see their paycheck drop.”

Along with the pay cut, the tentative contract would have teachers pay more for health insurance, raising the annual deductible from $150 per individual to $250, officials said. Insurance coverage to dependents would be cut off at age 19. Currently, the benefits extend until dependents are 25 if they are full-time students.

“I was very skeptical about us reaching a settlement, but I think the district just realized that we had moved a lot,” Uelmen said.

Uelmen said a mail-in ratification vote will be conducted over the next two weeks. Once a majority of union members approve the contract, the school board must follow suit, officials said.

Initial reaction to the tentative agreement among the union’s members has generally been supportive, Uelmen said.

“I think we’ll get ratification,” Uelmen said.

Westlake High School English teacher Bill Csellak said he will vote for the deal, but not because he is happy about it.

“I think it’s really unfair and unfortunate that teachers are being asked to shoulder what appears to be the brunt of (the district’s) fiscal mismanagement,” Csellak said.

Csellak said he isn’t so sure that teachers will vote for pay cuts, although he doesn’t believe there are other choices.

“There is a lot of disgruntlement out there,” Csellak said.

Lynn Quick, a 20-year teaching veteran at Weathersfield Elementary School, said she also will grudgingly support the new contract.

“We’re the ones that are responsible for the children’s education, yet it seems like when push comes to shove, we get shoved,” Quick said.

The pay cuts are unfortunate but necessary, said Alice Humbertson, a Thousand Oaks parent active in the local Parent-Teacher Assn.

“Teachers deserve every penny that they earn, without a doubt, but it’s just hard times. We’re all facing them,” Humbertson said.

As it stands, beginning teachers make about $24,000 per year while top scale after 24 years is $51,000.

Thousand Oaks teachers have been working without a contract since the previous three-year agreement expired last June. That contract gave teachers a 20% pay raise over three years, officials said.

If the tentative pact is approved, school officials will have trimmed the budget by $2.6 million, officials said.

“I think this negotiation was critical for us to even be able to operate next year,” said Assistant Supt. Sarah Hart.

Since the first of the year, the district has also been bargaining with the local unit of the California School Employees’ Assn., which represents 600 of the district’s secretaries, custodians, teacher aides and other support staff.

That contract is still being negotiated.

Because salaries and benefits make up 85% of the district’s budget, school officials are looking for classified employees to shoulder their share of the budget cuts as well, Hart said.

Even with negotiated cuts, school officials expect they will need to cut $300,000 or $400,000 in programs from next year’s budget, Hart said.

In exchange for the salary cuts, the teachers got their wish to make union membership mandatory.

The tentative contract agreement would require all teachers to pay the association’s $500 annual dues for local, state and national representation. About 569 of the district’s 683 teachers now belong to the union.