Southeast : School Board Members Give Themselves Raises, Prompt Protests

Board members of the Whittier City School District have given themselves a pay increase that has raised hackles among some residents.

School district trustees, who have been receiving $50 per meeting, or $100 in most months, voted to raise their stipend to equal what board members in neighboring districts of similar size receive. The increase to $240 a month represents a 140% pay raise that will cost the district about $7,000 a year.

“They’re bringing themselves up to parity, but they haven’t brought their teachers up,” said Kathleen Dickey, president of the Whittier Elementary Teachers Assn., which represents about 280 teachers.

Teachers in South Whittier, East Whittier and Little Lake districts have received raises in recent years, Dickey said, but a raise approved last year for Whittier City teachers is contingent on the outcome of a lawsuit.

Shirley Colver, co-president of a parent-faculty organization, said she was “not put off” by the trustees’ raise.

“I do know people get upset at the ways they spend money, such as not putting more money into teachers’ raises or into upgrading books in the library,” Colver said, “but I don’t feel the raise was out of line, considering that they’d given up their medical benefits.”