DISTRICT, TEACHERS DIVIDED ON PAY; MEDIATOR FAILS TO BRIDGE GAP.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

It has been more than five years since residents voted to create a K-12 school district to serve residents of Acton and Agua Dulce - and nearly that long since its teachers had a contract.

Negotiations between the Acton-Agua Dulce Teachers' Association and the school district have hit repeated snags and stalls, despite the involvement of a state mediator. The next session between the two sides and the neutral third party is scheduled for Feb. 2 at school district headquarters in Acton.

``I'm mediating an impasse that was filed over hours, wages and working conditions,'' said Draza Mrvichin, a mediator for the state Department of Industrial Relations. ``An impasse was determined to exist by the (state) Public Employment Relations Board,'' he said.

The California Teachers Association sent representatives to the small school district to help resolve the situation despite the two sides' mutual animosity. The local teachers union, which represents 106 instructors, says the district refuses to implement an arbitrator's award dealing with back wages owed to its members.

``They've been negotiating and litigating against each other . . . for more than four years without an agreement,'' said Hal Vick, a staff consultant with the California Teachers Association. ``The last contract they signed was 1993.''

Vick said the main point of contention has been a never-paid 7 percent wage hike in the teachers' 1991-92 contract. ``Because of (the district's) dire financial straits, the teachers had to take a 7 percent pay cut'' from the salary they should have been earning, he said.

Whether and/or when those lost wages should be restored are the crux of the disagreement, Vick said. An arbitrator ruled that the pay cut should have been restored during the 1995-96 year, but then the school board hired Superintendent Joe Crawford in July 1996. The teachers union and Crawford have been at odds ever since.

Crawford said the leaders of the teachers union have been unreasonable during bargaining sessions, turning down salary raises of 5.5 percent one year and 2.7 percent for next year, along with cash payments to each member of $1,800. Some of the district's offers have been rejected by the union leadership without going to the rank and file for a vote, the superintendent said.

``The district has been trying for four years to get the teachers to accept a settlement, but they have refused,'' Crawford said.

Currently, salaries for district teachers range from entry-level wages of $27,392 to the maximum of $57,958, Crawford said.

Under the district's contract offer, the new salary range would be $28,899 to $61,146 for the 1997-98 school year. Those wages would rise again in the 1998-99 school year, to a range of $29,620 for entry-level teachers to $62,674 for veterans, the superintendent added.

The Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District serves 2,100 students at two elementary schools, a middle school and Vasquez High School. This year the district is operating on a $10.1 million budget, of which salary and benefits for its 170 district employees account for 89 percent of the annual expenditures.

Grady Box, a negotiator for the California Teachers Association, said the district's financial problems stemmed from opening a high school - which shares its campus with High Desert Middle School - too soon after the electorate voted to create a unified school district.

``Instead of (re)paying the teachers, the district put all their money into starting the new high school,'' Box said.

Further, the proposed cash payment of $1,800 per teacher in the district's contract offer represents only about one-third of the lost wages from the year they weren't paid at the higher level, Box said.

In November, the school board voted down the proposed contract, Box added.

Another area of disagreement involves the teachers' workday. Crawford said teachers are required to be at school 30 minutes before school starts in the morning and 15 minutes after school ends in the afternoon. The teachers union has said the instructors' workday should be the same number of hours that children are on campus.

Mrvichin wouldn't discuss what offers and counteroffers have been made during the negotiating sessions.