COMPENSATION BELOW MEDIAN.

Byline: EUGENE TONG Staff Writer

BURBANK -- Seeing a boost in the local school district budget, Burbank teachers are pressing administrators to pass the increased wealth on to them, noting they make less than the county median for educators.

The teachers union is pressing Burbank Unified School District for raises next year that would put members in the top quarter in compensation for Los Angeles County teachers.

The district's general fund budget for the 2006-07 school year is about $115 million -- an increase of $4million from a year ago thanks to higher enrollment and strong funding commitments from Sacramento compared with years past. About 85 percent of the budget is spent on salaries and benefits.

Meanwhile, the Burbank Teachers Association said the teaching staff is paid anywhere from $37,000 to $70,000 -- up to $2,000 below the county median depending on experience, according 2005-06 county Office of Education figures. The disparity is especially wide for top-scale guidance counselors, who can earn $4,000 or more less than the median.

``This is a time to make good on something we had proposed over the last several years, that our Burbank teachers' salaries should never be below the county median,'' said Kim Allender, co-president of the Burbank Teachers Association. ``We should be in the top 25 percent of L.A. County.''

To press their case, union officials have urged members to show up to school board meetings in black T-shirts and buttons that read, ``If not now, when?'' The association represents about 800 teachers, counselors, nurses and speech therapists.

Gabe Soumakian, assistant superintendent for human resources, declined to discuss the ongoing closed-door talks. But he said the district has been compensating teachers fairly.

``We're able to attract teachers to our school district, and we're able to fill all our positions,'' he said. ``Burbank has done a good job over the years. Our scores are going up. We're constantly working on improving our recruiting efforts.''

The 15,000-student district tallied 779 on the 2006 Academic Performance Index -- a nine-point increase from the year before. The score places it close to the top third of school districts in the county, according to the state Department of Education.

In comparison, teachers' salaries at Glendale Unified School District in 2006 range from $39,000 to $78,000, depending on experience, and the union there is seeking a 12.6 percent raise, compared with the 7.6 percent the management is offering. Its API score of 803 places in the top third in the county.

BUSD administrators and the union have met four times since opening negotiations at the start of the school year. It's the last round of talks before bargaining begins for a new three-year contract next year.

For Allender, it's a chance for the district to do better by its members than in years past, when management would offer enough of a raise to meet the previous year's median, only to see it diminished as other districts offered more.

``We're about 3 percent below the county median,'' he said. ``We know districts are settling for about 5 to 6 percent this year. We need 6 to 8 percent just to be in the median. We don't want to keep scrambling.''

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

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