Ventura Teachers to Receive 1% Raise, 4% Bonus

After four years of getting no bonuses and only one small pay raise, Ventura public school teachers will receive both a 1% salary boost and a 4% bonus under an agreement reached by union and district negotiators.

The Ventura Unified School District board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the proposed bonus and pay raise for the district’s 670 teachers. The onetime bonus would range from about $925 to $1,900, depending on the teacher’s base salary.

Because the raise would be retroactive to the beginning of this school year, it would effectively double the 1% raise given to teachers last year, which was the only salary boost they have received since 1989.

Board members also will consider Tuesday raising the pay of non-teaching employees by 2% and increasing the salary of Supt. Joseph Spirito by 12% over the next three years.

The 1% pay raise for teachers will only amount to a few hundred dollars a year for most teachers.

The base salary for beginning teachers will increase from about $22,890 to $23,120 and pay for veteran instructors with advanced degrees will go up from $47,499 to about $47,970.

But Ventura Unified Teachers Assn. President John Gennaro said he believes the raise and 4% bonus are the best deal teachers could expect in view of continuing concerns over possible state funding cuts to public schools.

School officials began negotiating with union representatives for the raises last fall after the district discovered it had about $1 million more available this year than budgeted.

“The good thing about it is that we’re in the middle of a contract and both parties came together and said, ‘Let’s try to get some money to teachers,’ ” Gennaro said.

Indeed, Ventura is moving in the opposite direction of some school districts such as Conejo Valley Unified, where teachers took a 4% pay cut this year.

Ventura County Supt. of Schools Charles Weis said salary negotiations are “all over the map” in county school districts depending on what kind of pay raises were given in the past several years.

Conejo had to cut teacher pay because it had been raising salaries 7% a year for the past three years. Even with the cuts, Conejo teachers are among the best-paid in the county: Their salaries range from $29,365 to $51,109.

In Ventura, the 1% raise that teachers got last fall was their first pay increase since 1989.

Not only teachers but everyone who works for the Ventura district is slated to get a pay boost this year.

Bus drivers, janitors and other non-teaching employees would be given a 2% raise plus a 1% bonus, under the proposal going before the school board. Principals and all other administrators, except the superintendent, are also scheduled to receive a 2% raise.

Supt. Spirito is due to get the biggest raise of all: a three-part increase that will boost his salary from $84,091 to $93,856. In addition, he earns about $9,000 in stipends for his doctorate and length of experience. The superintendent’s salary also has stayed the same since 1989, except for the 1% raise this year.

With the raise, Spirito’s base salary will be close to the state average of $94,091 for superintendents in districts the same size as Ventura. But his pay will still be below that of some of his peers in other large school districts in Ventura County.

The superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District has a salary of $99,500. The Conejo Valley superintendent has a salary of $100,671.