There's a story out today in the news that the LAUSD has found that the health benefits that are completely paid for- the premiums, that is- are paid at the same rate for all, some with families and some without. The payment of costs for the coverage for employees without families is costing the District about $100 million dollars.
If that's true, then some sort of adjustment could work to lessen the impact in terms of layoffs. Whether there's first, an accurate report of that insurance benefit expense, and second, an ability to make some changes to the arrangement for any meaningful savings will be something yet to be learned.
The LAUSD put off any actual layoff decisions for 2 weeks and they will consider any alternate or different solutions from the anticipated layoffs. I doubt that the situation will change from a money standpoint as the numbers in the budget were given out and the stimulus payments were not going to be as big or as useful as they had hoped.
Furlough days- That's something that the union is rejecting as any way to reduce job losses. The irony of taking such a militant position is that you will have more teacher losing jobs instead of spreading around the loss of hours among the whole mass of teachers; but if the District "finds" money to avoid the job losses or reduce the announced numbers, then distrust continues. The union will always distrust the District. How much is "really" is there that can be "saved" by the District? And if the union does budge, with the idea of furlough time accepted, is that motivating the District to slack off on cutting expenses elsewhere?
The last I heard was that the union was not going to put the burden on the backs of the teachers, but the inflexibility is going to hurt those on the edge of the cut-off mark, which makes a difference to them, a big difference - they will work or they will not have a job. That's all that it comes down to for teachers in that range.
The matter of seniority bumping out new teachers with the lower seniority is not new and was one of the usual terms of a union contract, with seniority a valuable commodity.
It could have been addressed in contract negotiations for keeping teachers with other than seniority controlling. I wonder what will happen with the numbers who are in the credential programs, either in-house or university type as interns. If the jobs are cut and the credential work is not complete, where is that on-the-job time going to be supplied to meet the State of California requirements?
You saw in the L.A. Times a few weeks back about the dilemma many LAUSD-recruited Filipino teachers had who moved here who now find themselves in the situation on the same footing seniority-wise with the home-grown teachers. Should there be a layoff, the in-progress credential program of the teacher interns will possibly make many unable to fulfill program requirements as the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing is a pretty draconic bunch, very ritualistic and robotic. Unless the legislature addresses the changes that still have to be within the No Child Left Behind requirements of the federal level, that means they will not be very accommodating to those teachers with unfinished credential work and it may be important for those with completion time deadlines nearing.
Well, that's another problem. Right now, the LAUSD budget juggling is still not finished and we will see what changes if anything happens. If money or savings is found to keep all or most of the teachers, then the forbearance by the union from taking furlough terms begins to sound like a prudent choice. Again, time will tell.
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