BY STEPHANIE LAM
Daily Post Correspondent
The Palo Alto Unified School District is pushing back on union proposals to increase salaries by 28% for teachers and 47% for non-teachers, according to Superintendent Don Austin.
On Monday, the district presented a 2% raise for teachers next year, when the Palo Alto Educators’ Association said they had requested 13%.
But in a statement to the Daily Post, Austin said the 13% actually equates to an 28% increase, as the district factors in other benefits and compensations.
Austin said the district’s counter of 2% came from its analysis of what would be an appropriate cost of living increase.
Meanwhile, the Palo Alto Chapter for the California School Employee Association, a union for non-teachers, has presented to the district a two-year proposal with an 11% salary increase in the first year and 8% salary increase the second.
Austin says the calculation of the total ask, which includes benefits and other compensation, will actually equal a 47.92% increase and a cost of almost $38 million.
The average salary for a district teacher is around $130,072 a year while an average non-teacher, such as an office worker, custodian or teacher’s aide, makes around $87,648 a year, according to district documents.
(Non-teachers CSEA union proposal)
The teacher’s union president Tom Culbertson said their initial request was based on the union’s analysis of available funds in the school district. Culbertson said residents have taxed themselves in order to finance the schools and invest in educators. Since 2001, Palo Alto voters have approved parcel taxes, which brings in nearly $17 million a year and are typically used by the district for staffing, compensation and other student-focused programs.
The school board is debating whether to put the parcel tax, which will expire in 2027, back on the ballot this June to extend it. Former board member Todd Collins has said because of an increase in property tax revenue, the district no longer needs the parcel tax because traditional property taxes have increased by a greater amount than what the parcel tax generated.
The school board is set to review its budget and discuss the parcel tax on Tuesday.
No general strikes
In their Dec. 15 proposal, the teacher’s union also wrote to the district asking to allow union members to participate in national or statewide general strikes. The district denied the request in a Jan. 15 response.
“We don’t think it makes sense to put the school district, classrooms or students in situations where they don’t have a teacher,” Austin said.
The strike request comes as teacher unions across the state rally for higher pay and other classroom improvements.
Teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District will be striking on Monday to get a larger pay increase.
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Since when is it a “hit piece” to describe what the union is seeking from the taxpayers? The community has to pay the bill. Aren’t they entitled to know how much the union wants?
Is “Yawn” a teachers union member? That’s the only explanation for their brazen greed. Oh, and how many months a year do you work? And how many hours a day? 5? 6? Oh you have a rough life.
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PJT laments, “can’t we let the union and the district work it out without it getting ugly?” Truth is, these huge increases were the result of negotiations between the district and the teachers. We’re in the final stages before this is approved. So the union and district have already “worked it out” — they’re just now getting around to telling us what they’re going to do.
Since when is it “ugly” to object to a pay raise that’s considerably higher than the inflation rate?
If this goes through, we’ll have some new school board members this fall and the parcel tax won’t be renewed. Count on it.
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There’s no need to pay government workers a significant amount over inflation unless they have special skills where it’s hard to find employees. Also, trustees should never allow unions to strike as part of a national shutdown over some political issue. Just declare bankruptcy when you run out of money. That’s what everyone else does.
What people often forget is that most teachers get an automatic raise every year because they move up a step on the salary schedule. They can also move to the right on the salary schedule by completing supplementary coursework and/or advanced degrees. The only ones who don’t are the ones at the top of the schedule which normally takes 30 years and a PhD. Only new teachers are underpaid for doing the same or maybe harder job of someone who’s been around a long time. Also, when teachers get a percentage raise, the older teachers get a bigger raise than younger teachers who typically need it the most. This is all playing under the radar in San Francisco where the teachers are about to strike.
I’ve always been a big supporter of teachers. But a 28% raise is out of line. It’s much higher than the Bay Area inflation rate of 3%. If the school board caves to the unions and approves these raises, I won’t be voting in favor of any tax increases for PAUSD.
I’d like to know if these raises were within the parameters set by the school board for its negotiator to follow? Usually a board gives its negotiator parameters for pay raises behind closed doors. Under the Rodda Act, which regulates labor negotiations in school districts, if the union asks for a raise that’s within those parameters, the board must approve it. See Government Code sections 3540-3549.3. If these raises are outside the parameters, then it will be possible to negotiate a better deal for the taxpayers. It would be unconscionable to have authorized such raises. But some of the trustees are newbies, and they might have not understood what they were doing. Trustees, particularly new ones, seem to be under the influence of the unions. They have to get burned before they realize the unions aren’t operating in the best interests of students, parents or taxpayers.
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The School Board calls for a Multivariable Calculus course. The teachers say, “nah, we decided not to do that. We’ll take all the money, though.” Just like in the private sector, right?
100 million of our taxes sitting around getting interest, 8 million spent to remodel swimming pools not used by students at middle schools so PASA could have a year round low cost training facility funded with our taxes, Supplemental housing, bonuses, and car allowances for the administration. The reality is the districts administration and the State Unions administration are the bad apples Very little, if any, teaching experience. Both are here to justify their jobs. You can’t believe either side and the real victims are the students, teachers, support staff and community tax payers. We are all just a giant school of anchovies getting picked off by the easy meal predators.
The Top 10 administrators got a combined $2.8 million in 2024, the most recent year for which we have figures from Transparent California.
1. Don Austin, Superintendent, $411,676
2. Trent J Bahadursingh, Deputy Superintendent, $329,341
3. Yolanda Conaway-Wood, Assistant Superintendent, $283,233
4. Maria Yu, Chief Business Officer, $257,564
5. Guillermo O. Lopez, Associate Supertintendent, $257,270
6. Danae L. Reynolds, Chief of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), $257,034
7. Brent Klein, Palo Alto High School Principal, $251,911
8. Christopher Grierson, JLS Middle School Principal, $250,329
9. Jeong Choe, Assistant Superintendent, $249,777
10. Dawn Yoshinaga, Director of Mental Health and Wellness, $249,396
Unlike other government agencies, PAUSD doesn’t break out the cost of benefits for its top administrators. Instead, it just gives one figure. It could be forced to break out the benefits from the salaries (as required by the California Supreme Court in International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers v. The Superior Court of Alameda County, Cal.Rptr. 3d —, 2007 WL 2410093, Cal., Aug. 27, 2007) but that would require somebody to sue PAUSD. The district will intentionally violate the law if it knows it can get away with it.
What value is it to our children to have 2 Assistant Superintendents and 1 Associate Superintendent? Talking about bloat! Never give to PIE again. Vote no on any Parcel Taxes.
If we’re really tired of Supt. Austin, the dumb-it-down curriculum, the hostility to parents, excessive taxes … then we need to vote down the parcel tax and find some new school board members to replace Shounak Dharap and Shana Segal. With those two gone, it won’t entirely solve the problem because we’ve seen how the three remaining board members go wobbly at times, particularly when they’re under attack by Ken Dauber and his surrogates. But if there was any time Palo Alto needed a new school board and new administrators, it is now. If you’ve ever thought about running, you need to put together a campaign now. You can’t wait until the filing period opens to launch your campaign. Dauber will smash you like a bug.
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What I want to know is how many of those top positions existed before Don Austin was hired? There is too much bloat at the district office. We could easily get rid of 8 of those jobs.
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We need to get rid of the bloat, and focus on the teachers and students.