For the first seven years of the spreadsheet below, the Culver City USD remained with or ahead of the Los Angeles County average in salaries. Then the Great Recession hit, severely affecting California’s economy. The state’s housing market collapsed, foreclosures soared, the state’s tax base shrank and the state Legislature cut spending by deferring funds from K-12 school districts. In response to the state’s continued deferrals of funding, the CCUSD found it necessary to negotiate five furlough days in 2010-11 and four days in 2011-12.
The figures used in this spreadsheet are from the annual reports by School Fiscal Services Form J 90 Salary Schedules for the fiscal years 1998-99 through 2011-12. They are meant to give a sense of how the Culver City Unified School District teachers’ average salary has compared, over the last 14 years with the other 40-plus unified school districts across L.A. County.
See spreadsheet here.
If you have been following this year’s latest negotiations between the Teachers Union, the Culver City Federation of Teachers, and the School District, you may be wondering how a district that has been described as being “at the bottom of the salary range for L.A. County school districts” and as “not giving its employees a negotiated raise in the last five years,” can stay as close as it has to the County average?
The answer may lie in the only other district program annually affecting District employee salaries, the Step-and-Column program.
Each Program Unique
There are no standard models or amounts set for step-and-column increases, either statewide or across the County. Each district negotiates its own unique step-and-column format and the amounts given annually with its employee bargaining units.
Magically Delicious
Even without receiving a negotiated raise, District employees in the step-and-column program still receive automatic annual increases in their salaries. Amounts vary according to what step and what column the employee is in. The Culver City USD program has five columns. Each column has 10 or 11 steps. The first column gives a 3 percent increase, the second, 3.2 percent, the third 3.5 percent, the fourth 4 percent, and the last column a 4.1 percent increase annually. How much of an increase the employee receives depends on which column (education factor) he/she is in and how many years (steps) the employee has worked in the District.
Now the Time?
It has been years since our District has looked at, or even considered, renegotiating the amounts of its step-and-column increases. Is it time for us to reconsider the percentages being given District employees in our own program?
After five years of not receiving a raise, you would think that the School District would be really far behind. That is not the case.
How Lucrative
In order for CCUSD employees’ average salary to remain as close as it has to the county average, our District’s step-and-column program must have been more lucrative, much more rewarding than most other County district programs.
How much more is not known.
Looking Into It
To shed light on these enigmatic, often misunderstood, sometimes forgotten, programs that have an enormous effect on District employee salaries, The Front Page will be launching an investigation into these step-and-column programs across the County.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
