BOARD OKS TEACHERS PAY RAISE ROMER SAYS 15.3% HIKE NEEDED TO KEEP PACE.

Byline: Erik N. Nelson Staff Writer

A sharply divided Los Angeles school board on Tuesday approved an average 15.3 percent pay raise for 43,000 teachers represented by United Teachers Los Angeles.

``Obviously, we're gratified,'' said UTLA President Day Higuchi after the vote. ``We're not talking about being the highest-paid teachers in the county, we're just talking about going to the median, so I don't understand what all the hand-wringing is about.''

But the three dissenting board members, who failed in a last-ditch attempt to delay the decision for 30 days, said the pay hike would cut into critical programs to buy new textbooks, update computers and help failing students catch up to their peers.

``My problem with this is that we're doing this in the blind, and I think that's a dangerous way to do business,'' board President Genethia Hayes said. ``I just think it's going to be terribly difficult and we're going to have to make some painful choices.''

Superintendent Roy Romer said the deal, which 80 percent of the voting union members approved, was necessary to keep up with other school districts in California while also making up for salary cuts made a decade ago and returning authority to principals to assign less-experienced teachers to particular schedule tracks or grades.

Romer also said that if the district had chosen a confrontational stance in its negotiations with the UTLA, the lowest regular salary increase district officials could have hoped for would have been 10 percent, which represents only about $23 million less than the 11.5 percent increase in the agreement.

The new contract also continues a 2 percent bonus from last year and pays 1.8 percent for health and welfare benefits.

While the contract is for three years, the salary provision is for only one year, retroactive to July 1, meaning it will expire June 30 and that bargaining for the other two years must resume within the next few months.

Supporters of the contract charged that sharp criticism leveled by opponents, from Hayes and board members Caprice Young and Mike Lansing to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, were aimed at derailing the re-election campaigns of board members who supported the contract.

One of those members, Valerie Fields, said she believed that ``the best resource in the classroom is a qualified and experienced teacher,'' and the new contract would help recruit and retain such teachers.

``I would never vote for anything that would take books or instructional materials from the classroom,'' Fields told board members. ``I support this because it adds to the quality of instruction in the classroom.''

``I knew it had consequences,'' Fields said later in her office. Riordan, who had a major hand in electing the three dissenters to the board, withdrew his support for Fields because of her support for the teacher pay raise.

Board member and contract supporter Julie Korenstein, who like Fields represents parts of the San Fernando Valley, is also fighting to retain her seat in April elections.

Another Valley board member who voted for the contract, David Tokofsky, pointed out that in spite of budget worries, the board approved several new or beefed-up programs Tuesday.