About two years ago, the Los Alamitos Unified School District began feeling the impact of California’s financial mess. As a result, some teachers were laid off and class sizes were increased modestly. But, the arrival of one time federal stimulus funds allowed the district to minimize the pain. That was then, this is now.

As the state’s financial debacle worsened, the Los Alamitos Unified School District entered into negotiations with the teachers union and classified employees union. That was about 16 months ago. Now, the teachers are voting on the agreement which resulted from those discussions and the classified staff will vote on their contract in a couple of weeks.

If the contracts are approved, which District Superintendant Dr. Gregory Franklin expects, the district will close two days this school year and 4 days next year. In addition to the four less school days for students, teachers will also stay home for two of their non-student prep days. Except for Weaver Elementary, which operates on a year around schedule, all district schools and offices will be closed on the same days.

For this year, the unpaid school furlough days will be the Fridays before spring break and the Memorial Day weekend. The teachers are voting today and tomorrow on the new agreement. According to Franklin, all non-union district employees, including year around workers like him, will have proportionally the same unpaid days off. When fully implemented next year, the six unpaid days off will cost the teachers and all other district workers about 3.2%.

The furlough days will not generate enough savings for the district to eliminate the red ink, but they will make a significant contribution. The deficit spending for the current school year is about $4 million, said Franklin. The unpaid days off will save about $2 million for this year and next year combined.

Franklin said “In the kind of financial crisis we’re in right now, we’re not expecting to stop deficit spending. What we’re trying to do is to slow down our deficit spending so that we can use this reserve that we have built up to fill in this valley that we’re going through.”

The risk is that the state funding doesn’t come back before the reserves are used up. Since the district began union negotiations long before the governor’s budget was presented, the current district plan assumes more revenue than is currently in the governor’s proposed budget for next year. To make things worse, that budget proposal relies on a substantial bailout from the feds and that might not be likely.
Franklin indicated that if state funding turns out to be worse than forecasted, “Then we go back and take a look at additional measures.”

He said “We could keep slashing and burning until we got that deficit down to zero, but what would we have left? We would have left a school system in shambles—just to keep a big bank account? That doesn’t make any sense. The whole reason to have a reserve is when times are bad, you can use it to smooth out the valleys.”

It comes down to timing. The district’s plan is based on the idea that state funding will go back up to previous levels. According to Franklin “If it doesn’t go back up, then we go back and we continue to negotiate {with the labor unions}.” About 85% of the district’s cost is for labor, so it is almost impossible for the district to eliminate a large budget shortfall without cutting labor costs. That basically means either fewer teachers, or some other reductions, such as the furlough days, to reduce the payroll.

“Our unions—both teachers and classified unions—have been great partners in this process trying to maintain district solvency as well as the instructional program. There are a lot of districts that are in much worse shape than we are, who are not reaching these kinds of agreements with their employee unions,” added Franklin.

Franklin indicated the unions understand that additional shortfalls in state funding could require a return to the bargaining table much sooner than the end of the contract. “Up to this point, they {the unions} have been motivated by wanting to maintain jobs and class sizes, which is good for everybody.”