600% RAISE FOR LAUSD BOARD? DYMALLY WANTS EACH MEMBER TO GET $170,000.

Byline: NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN

Staff Writer

Los Angeles school board members could earn more than $170,000 a year, a 600 percent hike that would put their salaries on a par with City Council members' pay, under legislation introduced by a state assemblyman from Compton.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's part-time board members, who now make about $24,000 a year, would be the only ones in the state to benefit from Assembly Bill 68.

The bill would allow boards overseeing 500,000 or more students to become full-time employees and vote themselves hefty pay hikes.

"People are going to be blown away, saying: 'Isn't this shooting for the stars?' and 'Don't they have enough problems already without having to create a larger bureaucracy?'" said Jaime Regalado, director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

AB 68 was introduced Dec. 4 by Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, D-Compton, a former LAUSD teacher. Dymally, who could not be reached for comment Monday, has said his proposal makes sense given the district's 708,000 students, multibillion-dollar budget and complex problems.

The bill would make LAUSD school board members' salaries "no less than the lowest salary" of a Los Angeles City Council member, now about $171,000.

It comes at a time when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is pushing to strip the school board of most of its authority and shift power to the superintendent and City Hall.

Lawmakers, the education community and school board members themselves are divided over Dymally's bill. Some say a raise is long overdue, given the hours board members log each week, while others call such a huge salary outrageous, given the state of the district.

School board members Mike Lansing and David Tokofsky said the proposed salary is too high and that making the job full time would overly politicize the board.

Lansing said board members should be paid more as part-time employees, but he does not think they should become full-time workers.

"I don't know if more time equates to more efficiencies or to more political nonsense," Lansing said. "I don't think it's value added."

Tokofsky said what school board members really need is a pension boost.

"If you give to the public for that long, the public should be concerned about a safety net for your years of public service," Tokofsky said. "The answer is not salary, and it is most certainly not the $171,000 plus accouterments."

NYC paid less

By comparison, when New York City still had an elected board for its school district -- the largest in the nation; the LAUSD is the second-largest -- board members earned about $15,000 a year, plus benefits such as car service and expenses.

But the board was disbanded in 2003 when city government took control of public education.

Joe Williams, a freelance writer on education issues and author of "Cheating our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education," said school systems nationwide are examining the role of school boards in public education.

"The bigger question is whether school boards are relevant anymore," Williams said.

The LAUSD board president, Marlene Canter, declined to comment, and four other school board members could not be reached. Board members Julie Korenstein and Jon Lauritzen have indicated support for full-time pay.

United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy said it is ridiculous for school board members of the nation's second-largest school district to have a $24,000 salary with part-time status.

While he avoided naming what he considers an appropriate salary for a member, Duffy said full-time pay would attract more bright people to seek seats on the school board.

"Right now, those who will likely apply for the job are either retired or super-rich, but a full-time job would free up a whole lot of people who are interested in running," he said.

Runner outraged

Dymally's bill would also require the school board to hire full-time certificated librarians for each library and full-time certificated school nurses for each school site.

Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, called the bill outrageous and said it will do nothing but fuel the drive to decentralize the LAUSD.

"The people at L.A. Unified ought to be outraged by this kind of an issue. Instead of parents and communities operating schools, we're going to have some of the highest-paid politicians in the nation overseeing the education of their children. That's crazy," said Runner, an advocate of breaking up the LAUSD into smaller districts.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said he was stunned Dymally put forth the bill.

"They can't begin to justify this on any ground at all, especially if you measure the quality of the education of the LAUSD," Coupal said.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst and senior scholar at the University of Southern California, said she thinks the chance the bill will pass is slim. But it might be time to start the discussion on whether the school board should be a full-time position, she said.

"These are people that get paid nothing," Bebitch Jeffe said. "Some have another job, and it could turn into another political plum, but you don't know until you try it."

Measure L, on the March 6 ballot, also targets salary issues for the school board. It would create a review committee to set board member salaries every five years, in addition to limiting terms for board members to three and applying certain Los Angeles campaign finance laws to board elections.

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com

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