Teachers Reluctantly Ratify 4% Salary Reduction : Thousand Oaks: Contract approval comes after a year of talks. School officials praise the decision, saying cuts could not be avoided.

Thousand Oaks teachers have given reluctant approval to a 4% pay cut for next year--ratifying a two-year contract with the school district after more than a year of talks that led to an impasse requiring state mediation.

Although he would not release vote totals, teachers’ union President John Uelmen said Thursday the contract agreement easily won a simple majority among the more than 500 teachers who voted. But it did not represent a landslide, he added.

“It was a decisive yes, but it wasn’t overwhelming,” Uelmen said after leaders of the United Assn. of Conejo Teachers tallied the votes from balloting on Tuesday and Wednesday. “It was a reluctant yes vote,” he said.

School officials praised the teachers’ decision, saying the painful cutbacks could not be avoided at a time of dwindling state money for education. The school board will vote on the agreement March 24, officials said.

“It’s not a wonderful thing to take less money and fewer benefits for employees who are so vitally important to our operation,” Personnel Director Leann Nemeroff said. “You cannot pay enough to a good teacher.”

The agreement only covers the current school year and next year, so the two sides will have to return to the bargaining table in less than 12 months, Nemeroff said. The negotiations will not get easier with time, she said.

“It looks as if we’ll have to make additional (budget) cuts at that time,” Nemeroff said.

Next year’s pay cut reduces what a beginning teacher will make to $28,037 from a previous first-year level of $29,365, Uelmen said. At the top of the scale, teachers who have worked 14 years or longer with a master’s degree will see their income drop from $52,982 to $51,109, Uelmen said.

Linda Derahian, president of the Conejo Valley Parent-Teacher Assn., said both sides deserved credit for giving in a little.

For its part, the school district agreed to allow membership in the union to become mandatory. Membership now is voluntary, and about 569 of the district’s 683 teachers belong.

“I think it’s certainly courageous of the teachers to agree to cuts without a strike,” Derahian said. “I don’t know what other alternatives there were.”

In addition to cutting pay by 3%, the contract agreement calls for shortening the work year by two days. The shortened schedule would lower teacher salaries an additional 1% for a total of 4%.

Teachers also agreed to pay more of their health costs. If approved by the school board, the contract would raise the deductible for medical costs to $250 from $150 per individual. Insurance coverage to dependents would be cut off at 19, rather than the current limit of 25 for full-time students.

Teachers have been working under an expired three-year contract this school year while the two sides tried to work out a compromise. An impasse was declared in January, and two sessions with a state mediator in February led to the agreement.