Teacher Pact Issues Aired by Both Sides

Negotiations on a three-year teachers contract appeared to be deadlocked Tuesday as leaders on both sides took their arguments public.

Negotiators for Orange Unified School District called a press conference to explain why they broke off the talks late last week and declared an impasse.

At the heart of the dispute is $195 million worth of retiree health benefits that the district has no means of paying. Over the next few years, the district could be declared bankrupt, officials said.

“We are concerned about the recruitment and retention of teachers,” said Assistant Supt. Malcolm Seheult, who has led the negotiations for the district.

The three-tiered schedule of salary and benefits that the district offered last week would lift Orange Unified teachers from the lowest paid in the county and put them near the median salary, Seheult said.

Teachers hired before 1992 would be able to join the higher-paying tier by agreeing to forgo their retiree health benefits, according to the contract offer. The lowest option would give teachers a raise of 1.5% plus standard cost-of-living increases.

Union leaders, however, said the offer is unacceptable. The three-tiered approach would be illegal, and most of the district’s 1,200 teachers have worked for low wages for decades in exchange for those retirement health benefits, said David Reger, president of the Orange Unified Education Assn.

He described the district’s retirement benefit buyout plan of $1,500 for each teacher as “a slap in the face,” though he said a bigger buyout could be negotiated.

District officials have asked a state mediator to settle the dispute. If the teachers do not ratify the district’s contract offer by March 31, they will forfeit retroactive raises going back to last June, when the last contract ended, the district said.