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Pay raises granted for all Poway Unified employees

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Poway Unified School District employees, ranging from classroom aides and janitors to top district administrators, on Monday night received 2.5 percent pay increases, retroactive to last July 1.

In wrapping up current-year employee contract talks with the district’s three unions, school board members split 3-2 in favor of granting teachers and administrators and some non-teaching employees pay raises and 4-0 to provide the same to classified (non-teaching) workers belonging to the Poway School Employees Association. Board member Charles Sellers, whose wife is a school librarian represented by the PSEA, abstained.

Sellers joined board President Kimberley Beatty in opposing raises for the district’s teachers and administrators.

Regarding the tentative agreement reached between the district and the Poway Federation of Teachers, Sellers said it would continue the district’s practice of deficit spending and questioned some of the process and methods used to achieve the pact (but not, he said, the Interest Based Problem Solving process.) He said he felt three members who joined the school board in December had not had enough input and said many new teachers could be hired with the “$8 million” the district was spending on pay raises.

(District spokeswoman Jessica Wakefield said that all of the raises granted Monday night would cost the district $5,386,450. Teachers last summer also received 1 percent pay increases in exchange for working more days during the 2014-15 school year.)

Sellers announced that he would oppose granting school administrators “me-too” raises unless Supt. John Collins agreed to forgo his raise. When asked by Sellers specifically whether he would do that, Collins calmly replied that the issue was not about his contract and that if the board wanted to discuss his contract, that should be done in closed session.

Beatty called the 2.5 percent increases for teachers a “bonus,” which drew gasps and from many of the several hundred PFT members crammed into the district meeting room. She said that while she has a long history of advocating for public education, she has a fiduciary trust as a board member and approving the tentative agreement “is not in the best interests of children or taxpayers.”

As a leader of the county’s Republican Party, board member T.J. Zane had spoken out prior to the November board election against unions. On Monday night, Zane, who was endorsed for election by the PFT, said “I’m going to disappoint some people,” by supporting the tentative contract with the teachers. He said that as someone serving district residents he trusts the district’s staff and the answers they provided him in regarding the pay raises.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Zane said.

The pending pay raises, along with a handful of other items, were discussed prior to the board’s votes by several dozens speakers who each requested three minutes in front of the board. That process took about 90 minutes.

Former board member Steve McMillan took direct aim at Beatty by asking her to step down as board president.

“Miss Beatty, you have lost control...You are unfit to continue as president,” McMillan said. Among the reasons he cited were her “negative” comments in the media toward Collins and the IBPS process and her apparent inability to work collaborative with the superintendent.

Beatty did not respond.

Karen Harkins Slocomb said recent actions by some of the board members have created a “media storm” that worries her and urged an immediate stop to what she termed the “name calling.” Board members need to listen and trust the district’s staff, she said.

Several parents associated with the new PUSD Parents Group questioned the district’s past several years of deficit spending, with one speaker, Jenny Xu, likening the district’s financial situation to that of Greece.

After thinking about that remark for a few hours, the district’s top financial officer responded.

“Our district is not broke, it is not bankrupt and is not going like Greece,” a visibly angry Associate Supt. Malliga Tholandi declared. She said she and her staff “take great pride” in handling the district’s finances, which are routinely reviewed and approved at the county and state levels. “This (her work) to me, next to my family, this is my life.”

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