In its opening bargaining proposal to the Culver City Unified School District, the Culver City Federation of Teachers suggested that the District develop a five-year plan to increase the employee salaries bringing them up to the county median.
In his public presentation to the board, union President David Mielke, suggested that if the District did not offer competitive salaries, the it would not be able to attract good teaching candidates or retain its best employees.
Partial Exhibits
He chose different sections of the 2011-12 L.A. County Unified School District Salary Survey as evidence showing the CCUSD was offering some of the lowest salaries in the county.
It can be very confusing when comparing district statistics. You have to try to keep all the districts’ variables in mind – the number of students, the official Average Daily Attendance and its spending limit for each district, the automatic annual Step-and-Column increases, the demographics of the surrounding community.
Simplifying the Task
In trying to simplify the comparisons among of County’s unified school districts, I chose only to use two figures:
- What each district spends per student and
- What percentage of that goes to employee salaries.
This way it does not matter how big or small the district, how many employees it has or how big its district budget.
Click here to see the spreadsheet.
If you heard the Teachers Union’s woeful presentation, you would be very surprised (as I was) to find that Culver City, at 88.5 percent, is in L.A. County’s Top Ten when it comes to district compensation as a percent of pupil spending.
Under-Appreciated?
This shows Mr. Mielke is mistaken when he suggests that our community does not appreciate our dedicated, hard-working District employees.
9 Out of 10
Even though we do not receive the most (not even close) in state or federal funding, spend the most per pupil, or even pay our employees like most other districts, we do show our appreciation for them by paying out almost nine out of every ten dollars spent per pupil on District compensation.
This begs the questions: How much is too much? How much should be left for student extra-curricular activities?
How much do the District employee unions really want?
Ninety percent?
Ninety-five percent?
Or do they just want it all?
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
