BURBANK TEACHERS PICKET MEDIATOR TO STEP INTO $600,000 GAP.

Byline: EUGENE TONG

Staff Writer

BURBANK -- On the eve of the first round of state-mediated salary talks with the Burbank Unified School District, at least 200 teachers took to the picket line Thursday outside City Hall to call attention to the drawn-out contract dispute.

The group -- many dressed in black and hoisting signs with messages including "Burbank: a below-average place to teach" -- are seeking a raise that union leaders say would take the salaries of the district's 800 teachers, nurses and others to at least the median for Los Angeles County teachers.

"All of the teachers deserve to be at least at the county average," said Kim Allender, co-president of the Burbank Teachers Association, saying the only options are to "do the right thing or choose to hold us below average."

But district officials have resisted, citing a need to prepare for future budget uncertainties. When the two sides could not come to terms after meeting in February, district officials got an impasse ruling from the California Public Employment Relations Board.

The mediator will join negotiations today. District officials could not be reached for comment Thursday but have said they sought a realistic request from the union. The two sides were separated by about $600,000. The union asked for a 7.47 percent raise and district negotiators offered 6.35 percent, which would leave about half the teachers still below the county median, Allender said.

Union leaders said they have accommodated smaller raises in the past when public education faced stiff cuts from the state Legislature. But with the 15,000-student district now poised to receive an estimated $4 million a year in new funding from Sacramento, teachers saw an opportunity to catch up.

"We have excellent teachers, and yet we get below-average pay," said protester Jill Sullivan, an English teacher at John Burroughs High School. "We're cheap dates, and they're getting a lot for their money."

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Luther Burbank Middle School teachers, from left, Raylene Dodson, Lisa Raluy and April Evans yell out protest slogans during picketing by hundreds of teachers outside Burbank City Hall on Thursday.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer