LOS ANGELES – Teachers in the nation’s second largest school system are angling for a massive pay raise based on assertions from union officials that the district can afford it.
But Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy contends the 17.6 percent raise proposed by United Teachers Los Angeles would bankrupt LA schools, and board members have offered a series of smaller raises, instead, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
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Deasy contends that even the smaller raises – 2 percent now and a 2 percent bonus later in the year, as well as another 2 percent in 10 months and 2.5 percent in 2016 – will put the district in a projected $100 million budget hole, according to the news site.
UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl told board members in a letter this week “It’s clear that the money is there to take care of these (union) bargaining proposals,” which include the 17.6 percent teacher raise, a reduction in class sizes – essentially hiring more educators – and discussions with district officials about teacher evaluations.
Currently, “the average weighted salary of elementary and secondary school teachers in 2013-14 came to $70,000, while benefits such as health care and pension brought the budget figure up to $96,176 per year on average,” according to budget figures cited by the Daily News.
Several commenters to the Daily News site took offense to the union’s gimmie-gimmie attitude.
“Hmmm? Has the graduation rate gone up ‘17.6 percent?’” ChingatchCroute questioned. “If ‘the money is there’ why don’t they lower taxes, obviously they have too much money sloshing around there!”
Daily News reader Tom expressed a similar sentiment.
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“The bigger and better question is whether or not the majority of teachers deserve such a raise. The report card shows that they do not, with only a small minority exception …,” he wrote.
Others countered Deasy’s “the district will go broke” response to the raise request by pointing to the district’s massive financial loss tied to its bungled iPads-for-all program.
“The superintendent claims that a 17.6 % raise to teachers will bankrupt the district but, what has the effect of his iPad program and MISIS had on the district?” Edwin Ramirez questioned in the story’s comment section.
MiSiS – an acronym for My Integrated Student Information System – is the district’s wildly expensive and glitch-ridden computer records system implemented this year. District officials were forced to implement an electronic file system as part of a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union over the district’s haphazard student file system that allegedly resulted in students slipping through the cracks, the Daily News reports.
MiSiS is the district’s second attempt to get its student records straight, after the first failed attempt cost taxpayers a lot of money.
“After hearing from Caputo-Pearl, school board members adjourned to a private room, where they were set to discuss issues including a legal fight over the district’s predecessor to MiSiS, ISIS,” according to the news site.
“LAUSD is appealing a $5.9 million verdict it lost in court, after filing a lawsuit against the owner of the company it contract with to build the computer system. In the lawsuit, district lawyers claimed LAUSD paid the company $12 million by mistake, because the payments were never approved by the school board.”
LAUSD and UTLA officials are expected to continue teacher contract negotiations this week.
The district’s most recently reported graduation rate was 68 percent.
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