CAR ALLOWANCE FACES CRITICISM BENEFIT CALLED DISGUISED RAISE.Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Union High School District The Antelope Valley Union High School District (A.V.U.H.S.D.) is located in the Antelope Valley area of California, in northern Los Angeles County. The district includes eight public high schools, one trade school, and two continuation high schools in the cities of Palmdale trustees discussed the car allowance that administrators receive, a benefit teachers union officials have described as unfair and ``unethical unethical said of conduct not conforming with professional ethics. .'' Trustee Calvin Robinson criticized the previous board that hiked the administrators' car allowance last fall by $100 a month, saying it was a pay raise disguised as a stipend sti·pend n. A fixed and regular payment, such as a salary for services rendered or an allowance. [Middle English stipendie, from Old French, from Latin st . ``It seemed the previous board's intent was to have the auto allowance as a pay increase. The intent was to have it as an augmentation AUGMENTATION, old English law. The name of a court erected by Henry VIII., which was invested with the power of determining suits and controversies relating to monasteries and abbey lands. to salary, when in fact, no one is actually driving all the miles with few exceptions,'' Robinson said. ``The previous board, if its intent was to give a pay raise, shouldn't have gone around the decision by calling it mileage allowance Mileage Allowance A deduction of automobile expenses for people using their vehicles for business, charity, moving, medical or any other purpose that qualifies for a deduction. .'' The board debated the car allowance at Wednesday's meeting. The item will come back at the July 17 meeting for possible action. Twenty administrators are currently designated to receive a car allowance. Principals receive $4,200 a year, and directors $3,000 a year. The board last September hiked the allowance by $100 a month. Car allowance for the superintendent and assistant superintendents are built into their annual salaries. They too received the $1,200 increase last September, Superintendent David Vierra said. At the Sept. 5 meeting, the board approved increasing the car allowance of $100 per person per month. ``With the increase in the cost of fuel, the augmentation attempts to bring the allowance closer to the IRS-permitted .345 cents per mile that other employees in the district receive,'' a staff report from that meeting said. The policy of giving management an auto allowance has been in effect since the 1980s, a district staff report said. Other district employees have to submit forms every month indicating the miles they have driven in the course of their work to get reimbursed. The teachers union, the Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley Teachers Association, had raised the issue with the board, which then asked to have it placed on the agenda for discussion. ``The previous board created an unethical-type system,'' association President Gary Roberts Gary Roberts is the name of:
For some administrators, discontinuing the allowance would constitute a 3 percent cut in pay. Other trustees were lukewarm luke·warm adj. 1. Mildly warm; tepid. 2. Lacking conviction or enthusiasm; indifferent: gave only lukewarm support to the incumbent candidate. about the possibility of rescinding the stipend. ``I don't want to cut any district employees' pay,'' Trustee Donita Winn said after the meeting. Robinson said he favors having all district employees reimbursed at a certain rate for miles driven. ``Now there's one group with an auto allowance while the rest of the district has a reimbursement schedule. I feel everyone should be on the same program,'' Robinson said. |
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