L.A. District Offers 20% Teacher Pay Hike Over 3-Year Contract

Los Angeles Schools Supt. Roy Romer on Thursday presented teachers with a new contract proposal offering salary increases that would total about 20% over the next three years, slightly more than what the teachers are demanding for the first year of a new contract.

After weeks of negotiations, the union’s most recent offer was for a salary increase of 18.8% this year. But the union, which has resisted a three-year contract, says its members will need additional raises in future years for Los Angeles to become competitive with other school districts in the county.

Romer said the district’s new package should eliminate any justification for a strike, which has been on the lips of union leaders since the district presented its initial proposal in the spring for a 6% salary increase.

“I don’t see any reason we should have a strike in this district given the size of the increase we are proposing and the reasonableness with which we are pursuing other issues,” Romer said at a news briefing.

But union leaders reacted angrily Thursday, saying the timing of the proposal was political and was intended to take the steam out of a scheduled union vote next week on whether to authorize a strike.

“You have to be really naive to think there’s no connection,” said United Teachers-Los Angeles President Day Higuchi. “It’s a little too cute. We think it’s going to backfire.”

Higuchi said Thursday that the union is sticking with 18.8% as its hard minimum for the first year of a contract. The union is not willing to negotiate a three-year contract, he said, but would accept two years if the conditions are right.

Romer’s proposal offers increases ranging from 10.8% to 15.8% this year, and promises additional raises of at least 3% in each of the next two years, to bring the highest raises to 21.8% over three years. Romer said that about a third of the district’s teaching force would qualify for the highest increase this year.

Overall, union officials said the two sides remain about 4% apart.

Romer said his new proposal is designed to make the pay of Los Angeles teachers more competitive at all levels of experience by giving higher raises to the most experienced teachers.

He also floated compromise proposals on two other sticky contract issues: the authority that principals should have and merit pay.

Romer now is asking the teachers union to let principals choose the track and grade-level assignments of their least experienced teachers. Permanent teachers would retain seniority rights to the remaining spots.

As an alternative to merit pay, which the union adamantly opposes, Romer is suggesting a voluntary pilot program in which teachers at 55 schools could receive extra cash for improving their students’ reading scores.

Union officials criticized those proposals as nothing more than tricky language for the same demands.

Under the salary proposal, the lowest increases would go to first-year teachers, who already got a boost to about $37,000 a year in a separate agreement negotiated in April. That placed the district’s first-year teachers at the top among Los Angeles County districts.

Under Romer’s plan, the average teacher salary would become $51,300 this year, retroactive to July 1, when the old contract expired.

Romer said the future 3% increases could be spread unevenly as he tries to accomplish his pledge to make the district’s pay competitive at all levels of experience.

Higuchi said the district’s proposed 6% increase over the second and third years was not adequate because it would not keep up with inflation.

“What this amounts to is a 10% raise and two pay cuts compared to inflation,” he said. In addition to the pay increases in the contract, district officials expect Los Angeles teachers collectively to receive the equivalent of another 3% pay raise through the rewards for schools that perform well on the state’s Academic Performance Index.

Romer’s proposal for increases at schools where reading scores improve is partly modeled after the API. It would offer grants of $40 to $80 per student to as many as 55 schools whose teachers volunteer to participate.

The teachers would decide how to spend the money, and could choose either to take it as a stipend of $1,000 to $2,000 each or spend it on school programs.

Unlike the state rewards, the district’s money would be solely for increases in reading scores. The goal, Romer said, is to spread the district’s emphasis on reading beyond the primary grades.

“We know we have reading problems beyond K, 1, 2,” Romer said.

Union officials called the idea nothing but voluntary merit pay.