As Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) classified employees union continue to demand higher salaries than the district is willing to give, a State board will convene on Feb. 22 and 23 to make recommendations.
The California School Employees Association (CSEA) and LBUSD have been bargaining since March over a new labor contract to replace one that expired Oct. 31, 2021. Though the two parties agreed to 20 sections of a new contract, they reached an impasse over salary increases.
CSEA represents about 2,100 of the district’s classified employees, including instructional aides, nutrition-services workers, bus drivers, custodians and gardeners.
Superintendent Jill Baker said in a Jan. 24 statement that CSEA rejected LBUSD’s “competitive proposal” of ongoing and retroactive raises totaling 5%—the same as it offered the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB), last April.
LBUSD’s salary proposal consists of a 3% raise, retroactive to the last two school years of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, plus one-time additional retroactive raises totaling 2%.
CSEA wants to see what Baker called a “significantly higher raise” of 3% retroactive to the 2019-2020 school year plus 4% retroactive to the 2020-2021 year.
“While the district recognizes the significant contributions of CSEA during these difficult times, the district is not able to agree to this offer if we are to remain fiscally responsible,” Baker said.
LBUSD faces budgetary pressures from rising healthcare costs, retirement contributions and revenue losses due to declining enrollments, Baker said. She added that LBUSD covers employees’ monthly healthcare premiums, unlike most other districts.
“We need a living wage,” special-education instructional aide and CSEA member Viola Mae Bledsoe told the LBUSD Board of Education during its Wednesday, Feb. 2 meeting.
Bledsoe and other CSEA members have been vocal during board meetings over the past several months asking for what they say is an equitable cost-of-living adjustment.
During Wednesday’s board meeting, about 50 CSEA members gathered outside the building to cheer commenters and honk car horns in support.
CSEA member Enrique Chavez told the board that LBUSD’s actual raise offer is 3% with the additional 2% only a one-time bonus, and therefore not really a 5% raise.
“Why are we playing math games?” he asked.
Karen Foote, an instructional aide in special education, said paying a “living wage” would also attract additional employees that the district needs. She further compared classified employee salaries to superintendent Baker’s compensation of about $58,000 higher than the former superintendent, who retired in 2020.
“That’s $17,000 more than I make in an entire year,” Foote said.
CSEA employees at the meeting called Baker’s higher compensation a “raise,” though Chris Eftychiou, LBUSD public information director, told the Signal Tribune it is “well within the range of salaries for other superintendents of similarly sized school districts.”
Baker said LBUSD compensation to CSEA employees ranks among the top five districts in the state, with salaries increasing by 21% since 2013.
Unable to agree, LBUSD and CSEA filed a joint request for the State’s Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) last October to collect facts from both sides and adjudicate.
A three-member PERB panel—with one representative from each party and a mutually agreed-upon chairperson—was supposed to convene in January but will now meet later this month, according to Baker.
“The panel will coordinate and review relevant evidence and issue findings and make recommendations,” Baker said, adding that LBUSD and CSEA can continue to negotiate in the meantime and try to reach a resolution.
Correction, Feb. 5: This story was updated to reflect the fact that Superintendent Jill Baker did not receive a raise of $58,000, but rather was given a higher compensation package than the previous superintendent. The Signal Tribune regrets the error.
Let me get this straight. The Superintendent doesn’t want to give everyday hard working people a 7% salary increase but is ok with giving herself $58,000 a year more than the last Superintendent? These people are ridiculous. They think they are the only ones who deserves a living wage. Jill Baker, if you really care so much about being fiscally responsible, take a damn pay cut. Nothing you are doing in that office justifies your salary.