LAUSD-Paid Unused Health Benefits Cost $100 Million a Year

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.

UTLA, Contracts, Layoffs and Best Teachers- Steve Lopez writes.

Steve Lopez of the L.A. Times gets to the topic of the UTLA union contract and the teacher layoffs with a prominent factor that neither item addresses, comparative excellence in any teachers.
"Seniority, not quality, counts most at United Teachers Los Angeles," Steve Lopez, L.A. Times, March 25, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez25-2009mar25,0,4942695.column

The story compares UTLA's contract (347 pages) with Green Dot Public Schools contract (33 pages). Some of the same things I have seen before and mentioned in the postings are also pointed out in his article as important considerations, and that main one is that the layoffs are going by seniority that is a provison agreed to by the union. One teacher, Robert Rubisa, a third-grade teacher whose wife, a less senior teacher of 4th grade, is being laid off, had talked about his experience with the union positon,

Rubisa said he went to his union rep and suggested that teachers give back
some of their sick days to help balance the budget and avoid some layoffs.

"The union rep said we should not balance the budget on teachers' backs," Rubisa
said.

The tentative contract announced yesterday highlights that furloughs will not happen this year. I wondered when I read that whether more teacher jobs could be saved by using that to some extent, spreading around some of the loss instead of complete elimination of teacher's jobs. The response stated above is what I had heard before as furloughs had been discussed and apparently that's out as well as a partial measure to save jobs.

Lopez, as usual, brings out some views with his positioning of comments, facts and scenarios. A lot of what I have observed matches the view of Lopez not because we are both so smart but because the identifcation of the issues is so obvious an inescapable. Lopez goes further with comparing the younger operation by Green Dot, the charter school organization, and the way they seem to use more pragmatic approaches to the job. UTLA is shown to be burdened by its contract with an accumulation of assorted boilerplate provisions to the extent that it becomes undecipherable to him in seeking answers to actual situations. The UTLA is undeniably an organization with a particular interest and sometimes it does not operate for the best outcomes of everyone, even though it serves good purposes in other situations.

LAUSD v UTLA, Layoffs coming, but how many?

The LAUSD Board meeting on Tuesday was lively with UTLA, the teachers union, staging a demonstration in opposition to the budget-driven plans for teacher layoffs. I heard union president, A.J. Duffy, in a clip that was a good one to get the tone of yesterday’s actions. His speech was all about not accepting any layoffs of teachers and the comparisons he made to justify his union's actions, as well as get tons of points with members (and that's always good for a dues-collecting union) is very distorted.

Duffy said that this was a civil rights matter now. I disagree.

The “civil rights” label has now turned into anything anybody complains about- if so, then Octo-mom is on her own civil rights crusade. One big reason that I have for denying that the cause presented by A.J. Duffy is not a civil rights issue is that the TEACHER'S WERE NOT BORN with the teaching job, and that is not the only employment they are suited for. This is where drawing any parallel to the civil rights movement fails.

The teachers are not like Blacks or any ethnic groups that are stuck with who they are as a matter clearly beyond their personal control. The teachers specifically chose to be teachers, going into this career with their eyes open, as they are supposedly educated (and that's a stretch for some) and they were warned by so many before entering the teaching path- I know I was by many- of the pitfalls that they would be facing.

You don't do it for the money- at least it's not there for about 8 years of salary scale steps, but the health benefits were unbeatable, a big consolation. But teaching can make you feel so much better about what you do with your time and what you leave behind in the education of individuals than a lot of other jobs could ever do.

You cannot honestly equate civil rights struggles with the current economic realities. There is not any hate or disdain for the group, the teachers- here that you have seen for the real civil rights predecessors in history. You cannot honestly say that there is such a feeling present, either. If so, you really are ignorant of principles of business and economy, maybe even government administration, but especially you are bad at math if you think there should be no firings when the money needed comes up short.

In Federal Government service, where I spent many years- the layoffs were called "Reductions in Force" or “RIFs” and we were always aware of it as a hazard of the budgetary formulations. It has a better ring to it and captures the meaning more accurately than "lay-off." The case with the LAUSD jobs will be controlled by “Seniority” as the operative factor. One’s PERFORMANCE level has nothing to do with determining which teachers are getting cut, otherwise you might have some cause for complaint.

In the end, you're out of a job, and that's the bottom line from the teacher's side. And that's the side that the UNION is FIRST concerned with. How can you justify KEEPING ALL for teaching if (1.) enrollment is downs about half a million over 5 or so years? (2.) How can you say no layoffs should happen if there is less money to go around? (3.) You see in the news that jobs are getting wiped out and companies are closing all over the country. You have to see that it is going to affect you in some way if you are a teacher in the LAUSD, or are teachers that insulated from current events?

The budget deficit is really what controls. Superintendent Ramon Cortines said that if there were personnel cuts, he would first get out the non-classroom personnel (but he didn't say ALL of them would be let go; they DO have a few there to operate the District, even though sloppily), and those ex-teachers among them will bump classroom teachers by the seniority rules that Duffy’s very same union follows, and likely created.

SOMEBODY has to go but it's not ALL- and the pink slipping has to be done at this time as a mandatory notice prerequisite to any layoff. Should it not be done properly, LAUSD has itself painted into a corner- AGAIN. Everyone receiving notice is not getting cut, but that's the pool from which to select and they have to have a margin that will give with the budget numbers.

To say that it's a civil rights cause is to defile the notion of civil rights, as very similarly neutering the magnitude of horror when someone makes a comparison and says that somebody "is like Hitler." It’s like comparing by saying a firefly is like the sun. That image comparison might better illustrate the disparity between what you have and what is truly a civil rights issue. This will never approach the level of a civil rights matter if there is no immutable characteristic involved, and being a teacher does not satisfy that element. I would say simply, “Get real.”

It's all grandstanding, and it's that demagoguery they in ordinary politics use when the tax dollars are going low, that causes them they trot out the cops and firefighters to say "We might not be there when you need us," to let the people cough up the money like some kind of ransom to end the takeover of public safety. That is distorting the picture but then this IS a political process.

However, with teachers- there's not too much sympathy for them coming from those people who are losing jobs and may be without good benefits even if they still are working. The only leverage there is that the teachers have "your kids" and that's the whole key to ANY STRATEGY for gathering support.

If something affects your kids, you are probably going to be very interested. BUT you already see that LAUSD has only pockets of unified parent involvement to begin with- in lots of other areas many are not carrying their own responsibility as a parent, and THAT'S a large, if not the largest, reason for poor student performance (and behavior) in LAUSD schools.

A word to the wise: IF A UNION'S INVOLVED - like the variation on politicians that they really are- you have to be vigilant and dig deeper into the facts. DUFFY'S speech, as loaded as it was with images of history and the personalities of the civil rights movement of the last century, is still just too cheap a pitch to buy. But because many teachers (an important job, of course) are too carried away with themselves in the moment and with a few who are too full of themselves regularly, they rally behind him.

Did you hear Monica Garcia trying to cope with this disruption? She's the recipient now, but being the "cause" person that she is, had to comment to validate the union's "civil disobedience." This "demonstration" of dozens was nearly the leading story in television news. It is a significant event but not enormous or even very big in terms of numbers participating. Compare coverage with that given the anti-tax protest hosted by KFI radio’s John & Ken team this past weekend. There were estimates of thousands, at least 15,000, there in Fullerton. Some estimated lower but they either were there very early, or have just tried to play down the impact to balance against their own reasons for not giving it proper coverage as a news story. It was virtually - no, actually- ignored by the L.A. TIMES, and covered more briefly by other newspapers, while it is unquestionably a topic that will hit most Californians dramatically.

In this poor economic time, trying to make the teachers’ ranks “layoff-proof” is not a practical expectation and further, if a teachers strike goes beyond only discussion, besides battling the public’s indifference or inattention, the union will have to contend with hostility of the those who have no jobs and on the brink of financial ruin.

Some layoffs are inevitable, and some readjustment of the structure of the LAUSD administration is needed but it will not be seen in the short term. Converting to smaller districts with better accountability would be an improvement, but that, too, is not going to happen in the immediate future. Meanwhile, everyone suffers and the student performance is unlikely to improve.