Retiring BUSD Supt. Jan Britz receives retroactive raise

In the final meeting of the Burbank Unified school board Thursday night, retiring Supt. Jan Britz was presented with gifts and kind words. But that’s not all — she also got a raise that takes effect retroactively for her last year of employment.

The gifts included flowers from her colleagues, certificates of recognition from various politicians, a flag flown over the United States Capitol from Rep. Adam Schiff and a bottle of Pepsi from former school board member Ted Bunch.

The raise, an increase of roughly 4% from $205,000 a year to $213,500 for the period July 1, 2014 to June 30, is in line with retroactive raises awarded to the teachers, managers and four assistant superintendents in the district earlier in the meeting. Middle and high school assistant principals received a 5% raise to keep salaries competitive.

“It’s responsible and it’s sensible,” said school board member Steve Ferguson after the meeting, adding that the raises are necessary to keep salaries competitive.

In February 2014, for the first time since 2007, the teachers had also received a 3% pay increase retroactive to the previous July and a 1% increase starting July 2014, which means their total increase for 2014-15 is 5%. At the same time, Britz was awarded a 7.8% pay raise.

The latest increase to Britz’s salary did not affect her $100 a month cellphone stipend or her $500 a month car allowance, but the adjustment to her salary included the equivalent of a 4% increase to those amounts, and another $12 due to rounding.

Also on the table was a proposed 5% increase for school board member compensations to a maximum of $486 a month, but the board amended the increase to 4% at the suggestion of board member Larry Applebaum.

The salary increases took effect retroactively because they were negotiated for the 2014-15 school year, but while salary talks began in August, the district and the unions did not agree to terms until recently.

Administrator raises typically align with teacher increases, said Burbank Teachers Assn. President Lori Adams, which is why they typically are held off until the union negotiations are completed. She said that while an agreement with the California School Employees Assn. hadn’t yet been reached, there was a reason for approving the administrator pay increases now.

“If Dr. Britz does not get her raise now, it won’t happen for her because she’s retiring,” Adams said. “It would likely have happened sooner, had we settled sooner.”

A few residents, including former mayor and longtime City Council member Dave Golonski, had raised concerns about the increase to Britz’s salary at the very last meeting of her tenure, suggesting that it was an attempt at “pay spiking” to boost her final salary for calculation of pension benefits. Under the CalSTRS system, pensions are calculated in part based on final salary amounts.

“It’s not just an increase, it’s an increase for life,” Golonski said. “When you make salary decisions, there’s really two things that are legitimate to consider, and that’s retention and recruitment.”

CalSTRS said they can’t estimate the retirement amount as Britz hasn’t retired yet.

Britz, who said she usually doesn’t respond to comments like those Golonski made, said in a phone interview Friday that “there’s a lot of history” behind the raises. Teachers and administrators suffered salary cuts and furlough days when things were tight, she said, and “now we’re making up for that.”

She said she hasn’t checked how the salary increase will affect her pension and she doesn’t plan to until she retires.

Britz’s pay increase doesn’t fit into those categories, Golonski said, though he said he understood there was also probably an element of fairness involved in the decision, “and that’s a tough one.” But he said it’s the board’s job to make tough choices because the public trusts them to allocate limited resources wisely.

Matt Hill, who will assume the superintendent post in July, was hired in April at a base salary of $241,000.

Adams, who was a vocal opponent of the board’s decision to hire Hill, said she also argued against Britz being selected as superintendent in 2012, but she said she didn’t “begrudge” Britz her raise. But she said she would like to look into having administrators pay union dues.

“They tend to always get the same thing we get, I think there ought to be a little more camaraderie here,” Adams said.