Pay Freezes on Tap for Some CUSD Employees, Not Teachers

While teachers will see a slight increase in pay, other employees of the Capistrano Unified School District will experience partial pay freezes and even a pay cut, according to a disclosure the district released today.

The school district has a tentative agreement in place with teachers and anticipates agreements with the nonteaching employees, Teamsters and management, says a memo on the district’s website.

Teachers will not only have fewer furlough (unpaid, non-working) days this year – two versus last year's eight – they’ll also see a 1.2 percent raise, making whole a cut from 2010-11, according to the tentative agreement.

Some of the restored days come from a onetime windfall Gov. Brown wanted to pass onto schools to train teachers in the new nationally implemented Common Core standards.

The district’s disclosure says teachers will have five furlough days this year.

“Because of the Common Core preparation funding, which cannot be used for general fund purposes, we are able to implement three days of mandatory professional development. The end result is two furlough days,” said Marcus Walton, district spokesman. “We want it to be clear that the three days of Common Core training are being paid out of what is basically categorical funding. Those funds cannot be used for other purposes.”

Students, however, will experience a school year three days shorter than the 2011-12 year. Last year, they had five instructional furlough days.

For teachers, there will also be no freezes in the so-called automatic “step and column” raises, regular pay increases for reaching milestones in years worked or degrees earned. Last year, the teachers had six months of step and column freezes.

The other employee groups, however, will still have such a freeze.

The proposed agreement with the California School Employees Association, Chapter 24, the nonteaching employees, calls for a one year freeze in step-and-column raises. Meanwhile, the Teamsters and management would see half-year freezes.

In addition, the Teamsters, who drive the trucks for the district, are facing a 1 percent pay cut.

Management is facing eight furlough days. CSEA employees, who include secretarial help, campus supervisors and librarians, will have six or seven furlough days, depending on the number of months per year they work.