In a massive and rowdy street demonstration Tuesday during the Los Angeles Board of Education meeting, school union leaders spoke out against expected budget cuts that are already affecting decisions at individual schools, where administrators are making plans that will likely reduce employee hours or student programs.
As the crowd cheered, angry union leaders lashed out at the so-called Superintendent. Alberto Carvalho, saying he is breaking his promise to protect jobs and employee benefits.
Carvalho had no immediate response: He was participating in a board meeting, hundreds of feet away, inside district headquarters, in which the primary focus was supposed to be school safety, a discussion that was postponed. to a large degree. But Carvalho has repeatedly said he will avoid layoffs in the face of budget shortfalls.
At a school board budget meeting last week, while also pointing to estimates that about 10% of school systems across the state plan to lay off workers, Carvalho repeated his promise.
“There are more than 110 districts…right now facing teacher layoffs,” Carvalho said. “This is not a scare tactic. This is what we know.”
School systems across the state have had to deal with the fallout from the state budget shortfall and the expiration of state and federal pandemic aid.
Los Angeles school officials have projected general fund revenue next year of $9.14 billion. Spending for next year is estimated at $10.89 billion. The district cannot sustain such a deficit indefinitely, officials said. Still, cost savings have been achieved so far with limited impact on students and staff, Carvalho said.
“There is an inflexible position, taken by the board, to protect what is indispensable and, for us, teachers and support staff are indispensable to a well-functioning and well-managed school system that values and elevates the needs of children”. he added she. “We've negotiated historic pay increases; it wasn't easy, but we did it…without cutting a single dollar from employee benefits.”
Union leaders, however, accused Carvalho of pushing the cuts to the school level, where school communities would have to choose which employees or programs to preserve, cut or do away with.
“We are here to expose the deception behind Carvalho's cuts because they are deceptive,” said Max Arias, executive director of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents the largest number of non-teaching workers, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, janitors and teacher aides. “It's like we live in two worlds. We live in the real world. He lives in a world where, according to him, there are no cuts or layoffs. But they are happening.”
Rumors of school-level cuts began circulating months ago, as principals began putting together their discretionary budgets. While the district provides funding for teachers, depending on the number of students, other services depend on the school. Every school would like to have an arts teacher, a psychologist, a library assistant and more for five days a week. But principals (and the school leadership council) have always had to make decisions.
But this year there was less money for many schools and higher costs. Teaching assistants, for example, became eligible for health benefits for the first time, a cost that was passed on to schools. And even without benefits, lower-paid employees had received big raises through wage agreements reached last year.
Arias estimated that around 8,000 employee hours would be lost in the next school year due to budget decisions imposed on schools. He estimated this would equate to about 1,500 jobs. Arias also alluded to a situation in schools in which principals were asking non-teaching workers to accept jobs with lower wages or fewer hours so as not to qualify for health benefits. For the affected workers, the union, in its last contract, had obtained health benefits for the first time.
“The way he's done it is very clever,” Arias said. The “principal calls you into the office and says, 'I don't have enough hours for you next year. So unless you reduce your hours, guess what, you won't have a job. So what do people do? “They reduced their hours.”
Arias said the practice is illegal and the union has filed charges with the state labor board, as unions prepare to fight the district again.
It is difficult to know the extent of the practices Arias described. But one principal attested to the accuracy of Arias' description of how employees' hours are reduced and health benefits are avoided at some schools.
Local 99 reached an agreement with the school system a year ago, shortly after a three-day strike. Arias threatened another strike: “Do you want another round? You understood.”
“Instead of being brave and being a sincere human being, he is a coward because he blames others for his actions,” Arias said, referring to to the cuts that directors are making.
At last week's budget meeting, Carvalho alluded, generally speaking, to situations in which employees had lost hours and benefits. He said the outcome was not as expected and the issue was being addressed.
But the principal, who spoke anonymously for fear of possible retaliation, said there is no way to remedy the problem without providing more funding to schools.
At the rally, a King Middle School teacher said her school had to find $800,000 in cuts.
At last week's budget meeting, Carvalho pledged to provide additional general-purpose funding to schools and also, separately, to school arts programs that were facing cuts. He also said individual schools could apply for more dollars, as long as they included an accountability plan for the spending.
The dollar amount to be distributed and the impact are uncertain.
After Arias spoke, United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz addressed the crowd.
“A Carvalho cut happens when you have billions in the bank but you are defrauding students,” Myart-Cruz said.
Unions put that figure at $6.3 billion. District officials insist the figure is misleading and that reserves are or will be discussed once state budget reductions move forward and the next round of contract negotiations concludes.
Dealing with the budget is “one of the most difficult issues a district can face, right?” Carvalho said at the budget meeting. “The cessation of [pandemic relief] funding to the tune of billions of dollars, a growing statewide deficit position, rising health care costs, cost of living increases in our community that surpassed that of the state without any attempt at regionalization.”
But Myart-Cruz did not believe this explanation as he mobilized union members.
“Carvalho is a liar… and he is a liar because he says that children come first, but saving money comes first,” he said.
Inside district headquarters, the lengthy board meeting included public speakers denouncing expected budget cuts.
The meeting also included three reports on school safety, also the subject of numerous speakers who supported or opposed school police. The reports painted a generally positive picture of the district's safety efforts, despite skyrocketing incidents of fighting and drug use and vaping on campus.
As the meeting dragged into the night, board members postponed their discussion to a future meeting.
