Teachers Reject Culver City Pact; New Talks Likely : Negotiations: The hefty pay raise won by Los Angeles teachers is making life difficult for surrounding districts, and Culver City is the latest to succumb to “L.A. syndrome.”

The settlement reached by Los Angeles teachers last spring continues to reverberate in surrounding school districts, and the latest twang has sounded in Culver City.

Culver City teachers voted 111 to 86 Tuesday to reject a tentative agreement with the school district that included a 6% pay raise and new health benefits for retirees. The agreement, however, also had higher health insurance copayments.

Bess Doerr, president of the Culver City Teachers Assn., said the vote indicates that the rank and file “may think there’s lots more money than (the district) says there is” and “the 8% from L.A. is ringing in their ears.” Los Angeles teachers, after striking in May, won 8% raises for each of the next two years.

Doerr said she was not surprised that the agreement was rejected, but she still believes that it is “an excellent package.”

The no vote does not mean a strike, Doerr said. The union and the school district now must return to the bargaining table, and if face-to-face negotiations don’t work, a state mediator will be called in. At this point, she said, “We just start over.”

Starting salary for teachers in the Culver City Unified School District is now $24,000 and would have risen to $25,440 under the tentative agreement. Top pay is now $43,300 for those with 20 years experience and would have risen to $45,898 under the rejected agreement. Los Angeles teachers this year start at $27,346 and earn a maximum of $50,123 with 20 years experience and a doctorate.

Under the tentative agreement, the district would have increased its contribution by 7% for teachers enrolled in a fee-for-service health plan. But, because the cost of such health coverage is rising at a higher rate, a teacher’s payment for individual coverage would go up from $41 to $57 a month, according to Doerr.

The agreement would also have adopted a new state provision in which teachers can buy into Medicare by paying 1.45% of their salary, which would be matched by a district contribution.

Under the agreement, the district would also pay $1,250 per year for health insurance for future retirees after age 65, to supplement Medicare coverage. Retirees who are older than 65 do not have any district health benefits.

Doerr and David Mielke, president of the rival Culver City Federation of Teachers that was ousted as the bargaining representative in 1988, said the ratification vote was not split along political lines. “There were several federation people for it, and some CCTA teachers who said they were voting against it,” Doerr said.

Doerr said the union will survey teachers to plan its strategy.

Union’s Dilemma

The health insurance issue in particular, she said, has put the union “between a rock and a hard place.” Teachers who belong to a health maintenance organization and who do not pay any out-of-pocket costs for their coverage want higher salaries; those with fee-for-service plans are concerned about increasing copayments.

“What (the teachers) probably want is the 8% along with the lifetime benefits,” Doerr said.

However, she said she wasn’t sure the district would or could give that. “We’ll check the books all over again, and see if it’s possible there’s more.”

James Lively, the district’s chief financial officer, said the tentative agreement would cost about $850,000 for the 280 teachers, counselors, librarians and nurses in the district. The district’s 250 custodians, instructional aides, cafeteria workers and other classified employees, under a “me-too” clause in their contract, will get the same percentage salary increase and benefits teachers get, bringing the total cost of the package to about $1 million, Lively said.

The district intends to pay for its salary settlement with reserves, savings from employee attrition, cutting purchases of supplies, and getting extra state lottery money, Lively said.

No More Concessions

But he insisted that the district does not have more to give.

“I think they got the very best deal. We’ve given everything we could,” he said.

Ralph Villani, an assistant superintendent who is in charge of negotiations, said the teachers were “responding to the L.A. syndrome.”

The school district, he said, is “stretched to the very nth degree” and there was “no way we can give everybody what they want.”

Doerr said two Culver City teachers have left for the higher salaries in Los Angeles this year. One of them, a bilingual teacher, is making $10,000 more than she did in Culver City, in part because Los Angeles gives bonuses to bilingual teachers and Culver City does not, Doerr said.

Many others are applying and interviewing, Doerr said. “It’s difficult for Culver City to compete for teachers, but (it is) going to have to.”

Teachers federation leader Mielke, who had opposed the tentative agreement, said the no-vote was a grass-roots effort that shows that “teachers don’t want anything else taken out of the contract.”

“It’s almost a vote of no confidence in the negotiating team,” he said. He said the teachers association partly had itself to blame for the rejection, because it was voted in on campaign promises to negotiate for 10% pay hikes and lifetime health benefits. “Now the time has come to follow through on those promises.”