TEACHERS PICK HEALTH CARE OVER RAISES CHOICE WILL SAVE DISTRICT $1.8 MILLION.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Westside Union School District teachers have approved a contract in which they gave up a 3 percent raise but got their medical care fully paid for this school year.

The teachers voted 60 percent in favor of the contract, with 40 percent against, the second closest vote on an employment pact in seven years.

``Our teachers are not pleased with what they had to give up. They made a pretty big sacrifice to help the district out. They are fully expecting the district to make up for the sacrifice they made this year,'' said Bryan Page, vice president of the Westside Union Teachers Association and bargaining chairman.

The Westside board is scheduled to ratify the contract at its Tuesday meeting.

The contract approval ended an impasse in contract talks and will help save the financially strapped district about $1.8 million over three years.

The district must cut $3.3 million from next year's budget and nearly $4.6 million the following year to maintain a 3 percent budget reserve as required by the state.

A different school schedule also was part of the agreement, one in which classes would start a week later and end a week earlier with a four-week winter break.

In addition, the kindergarten program will be restructured so one teacher will handle two back-to-back kindergarten classes. Currently, two instructors teach morning and afternoon kindergarten sessions that overlap, and for 90 minutes in the day there are two teachers for 20 students.

The district has more than 350 teachers.

The union had fought for the disputed 3 percent raise, which board members say they did not approve and could not afford but which teachers union officials said was required under the 2002-03 contract.

Citing an increase in insurance costs, the district told teachers they must pay increased health benefits costs this year. The district wanted to keep the maximum amount of district premium contributions for each teacher at $10,078 a year, but the union wanted the cap increased by about $1,500.

Giving the 3 percent raise to all employees would have cost the district more than $3.1 million this year and the next two fiscal years.

Union officials representing nonteaching workers agreed to forfeit the 3 percent pay hike.

Paying the increased health benefits costs for teachers this year will cost the district about $1.3 million, resulting in a net savings of $1.8 million, district officials said.

The district also will save money by changing its school calendar to align more closely with that of the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

Westside bears more of the costs related to school bus transportation when its schools are in session and the high school district is not.

Under the proposed Westside calendar for next school year, classes would start about a week later, on Aug. 16, and there would be no three-week Thanksgiving break as in recent years.

The four-week winter break would run from Dec. 13 to Jan. 7, spring break would be shortened from three to two weeks, and school would end June 17, officials said.

The dispute over the 3 percent raise stems from the district having trouble figuring out the amount of financial reserves the district had at the end of the past fiscal year.

About half of the extra money is supposed to go to employees as bonuses or increased salary or benefits because their contracts entitle them to half of any extra funds that come in.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com