The Lucia Mar Unified School District recently gave its teachers a pay raise. Now, district managers want the same.
After months of negotiation, teachers in the Lucia Mar Unified School District were told there wasn't enough money for the higher raises they asked for. They ended up accepting a 2 percent increase. Then, on the last day of school, the agenda for an upcoming school board meeting was released.
One of the items listed included a pay raise for administrators and managers.
Cody King is the president of the Lucia Mar Unified Teachers' Association.
“When we saw this on the board agenda, like the first thing we do is reflect, and we're told all year how the district is telling us with a straight face that they're going to be bankrupt," King said.
The school board unanimously voted to increase managerial salaries through retroactive pay, a raise in health benefits, and a sixth step to their salary schedules.
King said the raise will push the superintendent's salary above Governor Gavin Newsom's pay of nearly $246,000.
However, according to a job posting for the San Luis Coastal Unified School District, the district is offering between $300,000 and $340,000 for its open superintendent position, comparable to the $309,947 LMUSD's superintendent will earn.
Curt Eichperger is the assistant superintendent of business services for LMUSD.
“The increases that the board approved are keeping alignment with other compensation in our county,” Eichperger said.
Eichperger said the district builds its budget on projections because the state budget isn't finalized before schools are required to submit their own. King said the core of the dispute comes down to how the district reports its finances.
“This is actually kind of a, the crux of our disagreements oftentimes is there's one budget a year that has the actual numbers on what was spent, what wasn't spent, and all the other budgets are projections," King said.
Eichperger said funding is an issue across the state and they do their best to equally share what they have with employees.
“It would be fantastic if education funding matched the expectations of employees," Eichperger said. "Meaning, there's never enough money to go around.”
