[Editor’s Note: Currently convening on a weekly basis, the School Board will meet tonight at 7 at School District headquarters, Irving Place. ccusd.org]
Dr. Myrna Rivera-Cote`, Superintendent of the School District, showed leadership this past spring by giving 1 percent of her salary to the Culver City Education Foundation’s Empowering Education Fund. But, just how many other District employees followed suit?
If all District employees had given 1 percent of their salaries, the fund could have raised well over $300K. But, at last count, the amount raised by the Education Foundation was less than $50,000.
It appears not many of the District employees stepped up and followed her example.
Just a Pied Piper?
So it seems a little disingenuous for the Teachers Union president to publicly demand that the School Board slash administration salaries back to pre-2007 levels before negotiations can start.
I hope this is only public grandstanding.
But, if it’s not, if the Union leadership really wants to rehash the past and now has finally decided to take a stand on this perceived wrong, then maybe the School Board should publicly tout its own 38 percent savings in its District-paid healthcare premiums and demand the same savings from the Union’s membership before the District will start negotiating.
Both demands sound ridiculous because they are.
Real and Perceived Differences
Both sides need to understand that when the District decides to hire a starting teacher at around a $42,000 salary, the position actually costs the District about $43,500 in District funding.
Both sides need to keep in mind that the take-home pay of this $42,000 starting teacher will be only about $31,000 after taxes.
That’s over a $12,000 difference in just one position.
When each side talks about a certain $42,000 salary, they are talking from different perspectives; perceptions differing over $12,000. No wonder things can get overly heated and the public rhetoric ratcheted up during salary negotiations.
No Local Bad Guys Here
I am no Libertarian, but the problem is with the California Legislature’s and the federal government’s continuing inadequate funding of education and their ever-growing tax-burden placed on employees and their employers.
Until our state and federal governments are made to fund the education of our children adequately and lower the taxes paid by public educators, our District employees and administration probably will continue fighting an annual war of inequity over an ever-shrinking budgetary pie — year after year after year.
Mr. Laase, a Culver City parent, may be contacted at Gmlaase@aol.com
