Final L.A. Unified budget deals especially hard blow to non-teaching employees

The Los Angeles Unified School District formally approved a final budget Tuesday that contained modest good news for elementary-school arts programs, but also, as expected, bad tidings for thousands of employees who will lose jobs or suffer pay cuts.

The official $5.4-billion budget will include $5 million more than was previously set aside for the arts programs, which means they will be slashed by a third rather than by half.  

But more than 2,000 non-teaching positions, some of them currently unfilled, will be “closed,” as officials put it.

The union representing clerical workers and some other non-teaching employees turned out hundreds of protesters at Tuesday’s school board meeting. The California School Employees Assn. expects about 1,400 layoffs, while an additional 1,100 workers face wage reductions of as much as 29%. These cuts will take effect over the next few months.

“We’re talking about losing the infrastructure of our schools” -- those who arrange field trips, track inventory, pay vendors, maintain databases, organize lockers and order books and other supplies, Susan Gosman, president of Chapter 500, told members of the Board of Education.

The school board approved the cuts to offset a $640-million deficit for next year. A new $85-million deficit could open up, depending on the outcome of budget deliberations in the state capital, said L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines. 

Library aides, who essentially serve as librarians at elementary schools, are among the employee groups hard hit.

“We have a moral obligation to make sure our children have access to literature,” said Mount Washington Elementary library aide Clare Marter Kenyon. “As library aides we made a difference in the lives of children.”

The Teamsters Union was on hand to protest the demotion of 314 supervisors from plant managers to custodians, which would reduce their pay from about $23 an hour to about $15 an hour.

The district's action is an attempt to provide more cleaning staff at schools by pushing down the average wages. The district will be hiring 468 “school-facility attendants,” who earn $10 an hour, and rehiring 437 custodians laid off last year, said James Sohn, chief facilities executive.

Employees represented by United Teachers Los Angeles are on a different track. About 680 members will lose their jobs July 1, including more than 200 non-permanent secondary teachers. Also on the list are 250 elementary teachers who had earned seniority protections, but not enough to spare their jobs.

-- Howard Blume

Comments

[Eve]

Good. The district needs to outsource all of these positions that do not require a college degree, which command ridiculously high salaries. Private companies can do it better and for half the cost. The money saved should go to towards the salaries of effective teachers, who have proven themselves in the classroom. Administrators, teachers, and students know who those teachers are.

[El Vergudo]

I think I'll home school my kids. Hell, I can teach them more on the weekend than the LAUSD can in a semester.

[Dan B]

The Superintendent is able to fill positions in his office by hiring a Deputy Superintendent at probably about $200,000 and get millions of dollars in donations from the Broad and other foundations for his senior staff positions, but he can't find money to staff schools. If the budget is so horrible, isn't it time to sell the Beaudry building and reduce the senior staff positions thereby putting more money into school staffs.

[Kerry]

I agree with Eve. Get rid of the unions and overpaid non-teaching positions. My friend's brother works in an OC school warehouse as some sort of supervisor and apparently spends most of his time supervising Ebay

[whamo]

Parents, if you can, seriously consider home schooling. It will take time and effort, but your kids are worth every second.

[spoiledkam]

These are peoples lives we are talking about. As a result of all the budget turmoil I have had to take on a 3rd job tutoring children. I am not a teacher however the students I tutored improved their grades at least by one letter before the end of their school term. Not all teachers are bad and not all non-clerical employees are surfing on Ebay. Some of us work very hard and do not deserve this.

[minerva franco]

Is about time someone lowers those salaries for employees that dont even hold a degree. this is the reason why our state is in financial disaster, My son just graduated with a degree in busines and a minor in economics and his starting salarie is 34,000 a year how can a clerical worker or janitor get pay 23dollars an hour it is ridiculous. teachers deserv to be paid more for teaching our kids and prepared them for the future. please do something about it or our scholls and kids will be ruined.

[Jo M Dipera]

The effective teachers Eve talks about are effective in part because of all the people supporting them. Teachers who don't have to spend time cleaning their room, ordering supplies and checking up on them when they don't come in, walking the halls to supervise students, etc. can use that time to be more effective with students. It is a team effort.

Maybe private companies can provide the same work cheaper, but they do that by denying their employees insurance benefits. How is society coming out ahead by denying good health coverage to its members? Pay now, or pay later, but you've got to pay. Maybe Dan B is right: selling the Beaudry space is an idea whose time has come. The people whose jobs are being cut are contributing way more to student achievement than is a piece of real estate that is sitting half-empty, half useless.

[Eve]

Are you kidding me Joe? I am a LAUSD high school teacher and have yet to be supported by these people who are supposedly there to "support" me. We clean our own rooms, make our own copies, work as our own deans, monitor the halls, and order our own supplies because there is no support staff. We have to beg for these people to lift a finger to help us. In my 12 years of teaching, I have had only 2 staff members who did their jobs adequately. Most of the time, they're gossiping or wasting time. So please don't lecture me. Competition, yes even for teachers, makes people perform better.

[Franny Parrish]

The "overpaid" non teaching positions that you speak of make on average between 12-16 dollars an hour, tops. Shame on you for not being appreciative of the people who pick up the slack and make your job easier. Just because you don't really comprehend what they do on a daily basis does not make their job any less valued. It is not their job in the offices to xerox your paperwork for the students. Look at your own job descriptions. I could say the same about some of the teachers who sit around on their phones, online, gossiping in the hallways or in the classrooms during the school day, but I won't. Why? Because just like the people YOU speak of not doing THEIR jobs, the teachers who don't do theirs are in the minority.

The office workers and Library Aides also go without a paycheck for the months of July and August and have no where near the benefits, retirement or otherwise, that the top tier employees in the district enjoy, especially the teachers. Stop demonizing the unions of these people, most of which are women and minorities just trying to support their families which is impossible on less than $23,000 a year in Los Angeles.

And by the way.....many of us have multiple degrees so get over yourselves. If your son wanted to make a lot of money he should have become a mechanic.