Teachers to Be Offered Pay Restoration : Education: L.A. Unified is prepared to restore 7% of 10% salary cut, sources say. Proposal will be presented today after board’s final vote on amount.

In hopes of averting a threatened strike in September, the Los Angeles Board of Education is prepared to restore 7% of a stinging 10% salary cut agreed to by teachers last year, school district sources said Tuesday.

The offer to be presented today to negotiators for United Teachers-Los Angeles, which represents 32,000 teachers, will call for raising salaries to their original level in the 1995-96 school year, said the sources, who requested anonymity.

Final details of the offer were being put in writing by Los Angeles Unified School District officials late into the night Tuesday. The seven-member school board is scheduled to meet privately at 8 a.m. today to take a final vote on the offer, which could still be revised.

Supt. Sid Thompson declined to comment on the details of the proposal Tuesday, but called it a “serious offer” that represents the board’s best effort to quickly resolve the salary talks. He said he will explain today how the school board combed through its complex $4.2-billion budget to reach the figures.

District spokesman Bill Rivera, who declined to discuss any details of the offer, said late Tuesday it “definitely restores salaries, but I can’t tell you by how much.”

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein, who had not been informed of the offer, said that anything less than a full 10% salary restoration for the coming school year would be put to a vote of her rank and file. The union has been without a contract since June 30.

“Anything less than 10% is still a pay cut,” she said. “I want our money back.”

Bernstein was guarded in her reaction to a possible 7% restoration and said late Tuesday it would be imprudent to respond to an offer that has not been formally presented. If the district’s offer is true, she said, it would be a result of “the good work the union has done . . . There is no doubt in my mind we pushed them to this.”

The union hired accountants to scour the district’s budget and make numerous suggestions on where pockets of money could be found.

“I will say that I believe the superintendent and I believe the school board president when they say they will do everything possible to avert a strike,” she said.

Before a union vote to accept the proposal or to strike can be legally taken, the offer must be presented to a mutually agreed-on “fact-finder” who evaluates and makes recommendations on the proposal.

District finance director Henry Jones said that “nothing is final yet” and that he will be working until the last minute today to prepare accurate budget information for union and district officials.

The proposal to be presented to the union today advances three weeks of negotiations that have put the district’s credibility with the public on the line at a time when district and union leaders alike have promised to put their differences aside to focus on reforming beleaguered Los Angeles schools.

Last year, protracted contract talks degenerated into name-calling and contentiousness, damaging the district’s public image. In the end, teachers took a 10% pay cut, retroactive to the previous year, but did not strike.

For the past year, the school board--aware that the pay cuts have demoralized teachers whose help is critical to turning around troubled schools--has pledged to make restoring salaries a top priority. At the same time, it has undertaken a major restructuring that needs additional money in order to take hold.

Rivera said that Thompson and the board will make good on their pledge to fund reform efforts by allocating “in the neighborhood” of $8 million for programs and activities that will be selected in the coming weeks.

He said the board found the money to restore the salary cuts in part by using funds that were saved on health benefits, owed to the district by the state or reimbursed by the federal government for earthquake repairs.

The board will extend the same offer to most other district employees who took the pay cut, Rivera said. Employees whose salaries were cut less than 10% will be offered a smaller restoration than the teachers.

A 10% pay restoration would cost the district $139 million for teachers and $200 million for all other employees.