L.A. Unified’s employee unions are prepping the public for another schools closure, their third in about four years. Union leaders will say it’s for the kids. In this case as in the others, it’s the kids and their families who will be hurt.
In 2019, United Teachers of Los Angeles struck for a full week for higher pay and benefits — it was for the kids, they said. They got modest wage increases for their efforts but left the district in worse financial condition.
And beginning in March 2020, the same union shuttered schools for 18 months in response to the pandemic. That too, was for the kids, union leaders said, despite data showing K-12 kids were less likely than all other age groups to catch COVID, get hospitalized or die. In fact, the data soon showed that it was, in fact, the closure that hurt LAUSD’s 500,000 students. Confronted with evidence that students were falling behind union leader Cecily Myart-Cruz dismissed the learning loss as irrelevant.
“Our kids didn’t lose anything,” she told Los Angeles Magazine in an interview so extraordinary it went global. “It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
This year, it’s the LAUSD’s service workers, represented by the Service Employees International Union. They’re threatening to strike, claiming the district has $4.9 billion in reserves. LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has flatly contradicted that figure, stating “We’re not sitting on $5 billion worth of reserves, and to say that is inspiring false hope — period. I stand by it.”
“Reserves” turns out to be a somewhat ambiguous number. While there may be an impressive sounding amount of unallocated cash available today, the district is projected to spend about $1 billion more than it will take in over the next two fiscal years, and already anticipated increases to staffing and new programs will reduce the unallocated portion of that $4.9 billion.
According to the SEIU, the average annual salary for the 30,000 LAUSD service workers they represent is $25,000. But that includes all service workers, from part-time to full-time. About 75% of the members work fewer than eight hours per day, and with school in session only 180 days, or 36 weeks per year, even many of the workers with “full-time hours” are off for up to 16 weeks per year.
Union representatives themselves acknowledge LAUSD’s reliance on a part-time workforce. But it raises an uncomfortable question that applies to teachers as well: If K-12 schools in California operate for the equivalent of just 36 full weeks per year, is it reasonable for people working in these schools to expect to earn enough to cover a full year of expenses? Similarly, if some of the service jobs require a worker for only a few hours each day, how can the district’s taxpayers afford to pay them for a full day?
These are difficult questions. But LAUSD, and the unions representing LAUSD’s workers, have to start by recognizing that if there were an efficient way to convert every part-time worker to full-time work, thousands of part-time workers would have to be let go. And until California’s public schools require not 36 weeks per year of active service, but the 48 weeks which is typical in the private sector, they should not expect to receive annual pay equivalent to what people in similar jobs make in the private sector.
Whether there’s enough cash today to grant the LAUSD’s service workers the 30% wage increase they’re demanding, the long-term financial outlook of the district remains troubled, thanks in no small part to the teachers union’s practice of financing the campaigns of school board candidates who, once in office, return the favor with higher pay and benefits.
In 2021, the average annual pension and benefit package for a full-career LAUSD retiree in the teachers pension fund, called CalSTRS, was over $77,000. Meanwhile, the funded status of CalSTRS on June 30, 2022 was a dismal 67%. Translation: the state managed fund is short 33% of the money it needs to pay retirees.
CalSTRS is staring down an unfunded liability of $104 billion. This translates into a huge financial burden on LAUSD. Their current budget allocates 12 percent for CalSTRS, over $2 billion. As CalSTRS copes with a moribund stock market, real estate values that are topping out, and the attenuating burden of Diversity Equity and Inclusion restrictions on where they can place their investments, expect that debt to rise.
Like all California public schools, LAUSD receives funds based on student attendance, and how much that per student rate has gone up is tied to the state’s general fund budget. According to reports from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), and after adjusting for inflation and for population growth, the state’s general fund budget is up 84 percent compared to just 10 years ago. Put another way, the state’s per capita general fund spending in the current fiscal year is just under $6,000 per California resident; 10 years ago — in 2022 dollars — it was just over $3,000 per resident.
This increase translates into vastly more funds for LAUSD, because 38 percent of all General Fund expenditures go to K-14 public education in California. When general fund spending goes up, school districts get 38% of the increase. In the case of LAUSD, the increase over the past 10 years has been equally dramatic. The district’s general fund expenditures in 2012-13 were $5.8 billion. In their 2022-23 adopted budget, the General Fund projection is $12.6 billion, a doubling in just 10 years. Meanwhile, enrollment at LAUSD is down below 600,000 this year — lower than it’s been in over 30 years.
Related Articles
CD 6 Special Election: Los Angeles candidates respond to 5 key questions
Huntington Beach’s NIMBY temper tantrum
Biden’s attack on ‘ghost guns’ fits a pattern of lawless firearm regulation
Jon Coupal: By all means, let’s talk about ‘junk fees’
‘A History for the Future’: MOCA, 40 years on
The unions representing SEIU membership in LAUSD may get the windfall they’re demanding. But their need to perpetually negotiate wage increases that keep up with California’s exploding cost-of-living is, in fact, one of the engines driving inflation: every time a government worker receives an increase, taxes rise — taxes for everyone, including teachers, service workers, and families of students in the district.
Union leaders need to recognize that the nature of work in California’s public schools necessitates a lot of part-time, partial-year employment. Until that structural obstacle is somehow overcome, they’re pushing water uphill.
They might also recognize that California’s state legislature — over which the coalition of government unions exercises near-total control — is also directly responsible for the fact that California is the least affordable state in the nation. That burden is most difficult for working families. Union leaders might support state investment in practical water, power, and transportation infrastructure, such as we saw back in the days of Gov. Pat Brown. These investments paved the way for an oversupply of homes and abundant, cheap water and power. That is a path to prosperity for everyone in the state, and an inspiring objective that these unions have the power to make a reality.
Edward Ring is a co-founder of the California Policy Center and the author of “The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California.”