PUBLIC FORUM : PAY RAISE FOR BRASS TARNISHES SCHOOL BOARD.

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education recently approved raises for the superintendent, Ruben Zacarias, his deputies and hundreds of other bureaucrats.

This was after a hefty pay hike just a few months ago and was approved before any performance evaluations were done.

Compare their raises of up to 46 percent in four months and those for teachers, which add up to 10 percent over three years. There's no contest there and also no hint of accountability for the fat cats. Once again, raises increase exponentially with distance from daily contact with students.

If this latest move to line bureaucrats' pockets with more money at the expense of kids does not convince voters to pass the Sane School Spending Initiative, known as ``95/5,'' I don't know what will.

If passed, the initiative which has qualified for the June 1998 ballot, would dictate that 95 cents of every education dollar go to the local school sites. That leaves only 5 cents of every education dollar for centralized administration. It will put an automatic ceiling on expenditures for all the downtown administrations statewide.

There is also some question of the legality of the pay raise vote. Whether or not it is legal, it is a slap in the face to our 36,000 teachers-support services personnel and 670,000 students in neighborhood schools and every other employee.

Shame on those board members who voted yes to this unconscionable gravy train.

- Day Higuchi

President

United Teachers Los Angeles

With regard to the notion that pay not be linked to performance: How about changing it to something like, ``We make money the old-fashioned way, we earn it,'' or would that be asking too much?

Thank you, Daily News, for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

- Debra Greenfield

West Hills

I want to start off this letter by thanking the Daily News for its continuing coverage of the Los Angeles Unified School District - keep up the good work.

I also appreciated your article concerning ``Payday for bigwigs,'' addressing the 6 percent pay hikes the top brass is receiving at the LAUSD. It's nice to know that some people are getting raises.

My husband is with the maintenance department of the LAUSD and he did not receive a raise for eight years. This makes it difficult for a family when everything around you is going up in cost - food, clothing, gas.

The LAUSD is one of the most top-heavy, bureaucratic operations in the country. The superintendent has to realize that the district is not just made up of administrators. It encompasses a wide range of employees from teachers to maintenance workers. They are not just numbers, but hard-working men and women who deserve a lot better than what they are getting from the district.

Wake up, Mr. Ruben Zacarias and the school board. Start taking care of all your employees and not just the chosen few.

- Lori Powell

Santa Clarita

If you were given $180,000 to spend on education, which choice below would be the most beneficial:

Pay the salary of one school superintendent, or hire seven beginning teachers?

- Jim Cromwell

Westlake Village

My colleagues and I are absolutely livid at this latest move. As a classified employee for more than 30 years with the Los Angeles Unified School District, my annual salary is a whopping $21,770.

A 25 percent increase in my wages would make things a little easier for myself and the rest of the clerical and support staff. Let's see - that would give me just over $27,000 per year. A little better, but nowhere near $188,000.

It has taken my colleagues and I eight years to get 6 percent. We have also suffered cutbacks, furloughs and other hardships during that time. Now we read that the bigwigs have seen fit to get 25 percent to 30 percent increases in just three months. How dare this district ever tell us they don't have money.

If things are good right now, why not give loyal employees a better wage increase package? Don't we deserve that? We have supported this district during all the tough times these past eight years, and this is the thanks we get - a virtual slap in the face.

Most of the school offices and classrooms are in need of decent office equipment, chairs and machinery. The classrooms are using outdated texts. The plant managers and trades don't even have adequate staff or materials to do a decent job, but the top brass at the LAUSD can sure find money for what they feel is important - themselves.

- Carolyn Whitehead

Canyon Country

Just think what $8.6 million (the cost of the pay raise for Ruben Zacarias, his top aides and hundreds of employees) could buy for the schools in Los Angeles.

Wake up, board members, the petition to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District is already circulating at our school.

- Mary Lou Westmoreland

Northridge

Teacher credentials

M. Wolfson stated in the Public Forum on Oct. 30 that ``Emergency credentialed teachers have no business in the regular or special education classroom.''

That is simply untrue. There may be some bad ones, but there are also some excellent emergency credentialed teachers who, in fact, do a much better job than some credentialed teachers.

- Dan Adam Goodman

North Hollywood

Campaign spending

So our politicians are reluctant to limit campaign contributions. Surprise. They claim that ever larger amounts of money are needed to get their message out.

What message? They raise twice the money; do we get twice the vision or even information? No. What we do get is twice the attack ads. We also get twice as disgusted and, as a result, we vote half as much. Maybe that's the plan.

Only in America.

- Alex Landi

North Hills

Scientology march

Re ``Travolta: Ich bien ein Scientologist,'' Daily News, Oct. 28:

We appreciate your coverage of the Church of Scientology-sponsored Berlin march for religious freedom and tolerance in Germany.

There were a couple of inaccuracies forwarded by the German government in that article that I felt it important to correct, however.

There were an estimated 12,000 in attendance at the march, more than the predicted 10,000. Thousands of people traveled from other countries to attend.

The article states that the German government feels Scientology is not a religion, but the facts belie this claim. There have been more than 35 court cases in Germany that have found conclusively that Scientology is a religion. Does the German government ignore its own court findings whenever it becomes inconvenient? It appears so.

- Cory Brennan

Burbank

I was in Berlin when the Scientology Crusade for Religious Freedom marched through the streets Oct. 27. My wife and I marched those miles and there were so many people in our march that I couldn't see either the front or the rear of the column.

I'm not a crowd counter, but the number was easily more than 10,000 people of all religious beliefs who marched to protest German intolerance of religious freedom.

Karl Loren

Burbank

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PHOTO RUBEN ZACARIAS

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