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Lucia Mar teachers dissatisfied with 6 percent raise

April 17, 2015

teacher1The Lucia Mar teachers’ union has ratified its new pay agreement with the school district, but about 40 percent of union members voted against the new contract that awards teachers a 6 percent raise over the next year. [Tribune]

Last week, the Lucia Mar Teachers’ Association and district officials reached a tentative agreement that seemingly put an end to months of heated contract negotiations, as well as a looming strike. This week, the teachers’ union voted to ratify the agreement, which gives them an immediate 3 percent raise and a second 3 percent raise, effective Jan. 1, 2016.

Ninety-two percent of union members took part in the vote. Of those who voted, 59 percent supported ratifying the agreement, and 42 percent opposed it.

Union president Donna Kandel said the large minority who voted against the new contract was significant. Kandel also said the new pay agreement was less than what the district could or should afford.

For most of the negotiation process, union representatives demanded 10 percent pay increases for teachers. District officials initially offered 2 percent raises.

The average Lucia Mar teacher currently receives a salary of about $61,000 a year. Lucia Mar teachers received a 2 percent raise in 2012-2013 and 4.3 percent bump in pay in 2013-2014.

Had the two sides not reached an agreement, a strike was likely to begin in mid-April.

The pay agreement must now go to the Lucia Mar school board for final approval. The board is expected to approve the contract at one of its meetings in May.


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All of you people in the “private sector” need to stop your griping. The jealousy you have(don’t include me in your bitchfest) of Calpers or other public employees is disgusting. Just because you were too stupid to take that same job, don’t begrudge them for doing it. I wish I had taken a public job when I was 18-21…instead, I screwed myself by working in construction making TONS of money for 4-5 years. If I had taken a job with retirement back then, I would be sitting pretty now. No one to blame for my stupid mistake except myself. Hats off to the public workers with pensions. You made the right decision back then, most of us didn’t.


You people weren’t griping when you were making MORE than them when the economy was good. YOU are the sniveling crybabies, not the teachers and other public workers.


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I am glad to read someone mention this. I continue to mention this REPEATEDLY. Readers gloss over this, because they would rather be hateful and ignorant.


As a nurse graduating with my nursing degree at age 22, I had (and still have) many options for employment. Nurses in the public sector (County nurses- nurses that work in jails, give TB meds, Valley fever, travel meds, that work with kids that get take away from their parents, nurses that go under bridges to check on the homeless, pregnant mothers, veterans, school nurses that check on diabetic students, jail nurses) those nurses are making $20 an hours less right now than nurses in the private sector right now MINIMUM. The trade off is that County nurses, with the exception of the jail nurses and being on call for disasters, do not work weekends and holidays. They DO get called for Sexual assaults, SIDS deaths if specially trained. A brand new nurse in the hospital will make more than a nurse going to visit a domestic violence family, or a family at a known drug hotel, the SAME PLACES LAW ENFORCEMENT GOES, but the nurse has to go alone. The nurse gets told that people like nurses, they won’t hurt the nurse. Long story short, the nurse graduating like me can opt to take this job for FAR LESS PAY, because they are promised the SECURITY of the pension. Slow and steady wins the race, eh?


Or, the nurse like me can hit the pavement and go in to the hospital, learning vast and comprehensive skills, like ACLS, PALS, STABLE, work in ICUs, NICUs, PICUs, and so much more. There is so much opportunity to learn, to meet people, to make $$$. Oh, the things I have seen, the people I have met. The things people do to themselves is awe inspiring. I learned at a very early age that life is short, precious and VERY UNFAIR. I also learned that money is not everything.


My point of this post is that life is a series of choices. There are those who chose to gamble. They chose to take the money and run. There were are HUGE group of people in this country who were ROLLING in the dough for a good many years. You ALL know who you are. If you were vacationing instead of saving, that was your decision. You will get no judgment on my part. This is AMERICA; the land of bad decisions. If you aren’t hurting anyone else but yourself, knock yourself out.


That said, those “SECURE” folks who chose to be safe and take the pension route while everyone else took the Vegas vacation route, that was THEIR CHOICE. They were being safe while the partiers were eating their cake. They were eating their veggies, saving their cake for later. Everyone who is whining about the government workers with pensions (who PAY in to that pension by the way) who still have their cake, are being gigantic jerks.


Choice and consequence. As for the teachers, if you actually go to the Department of education, WHICH I HAVE POSTED BEFORE, their income hasn’t increased much for inflation since the 70s, as with much of America. It is very depressing.


Like it or not, this is true. I am just passing on the information.


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To the 42%…let them eat cake!


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Where are today’s Ronald Reagan’s?…fire them all and hang the help wanted sign in the window and watch 90% of the fired teachers return to apply. They know they have it made compared to many in society today.


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Scum sucking scab lover.


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Nice… you must be a teacher…I love anyone that is willing to work hard and do their job to the best of their ability. What I don’t love is constantly feeling that I have a gun to my head and a hand in my pocket. I do not take kindly to blackmail; if that makes me a scum sucking scab lover than I damn proud to be one.


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Josh, a time tested idiom says it best….”Those who can, do…those who can’t, teach.


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And those who TRULY can’t just belittle people who at least try to do something useful with their lives.


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Why am I not shocked that another conservative doesn’t know how government actually works. Newsflash: a POTUS cannot fire state employees. Besides, I thought you conservatives were terrified of a POTUS trampling on the 10th Amendment. So you defend it only when it suits your conservative cause, eh? A little consistency, please.


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Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.


Like anyone in the private sector even gets a raise. Let alone a pension. Gimme a break.


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There’s a reason that we have two distinct words–“private” and “public”–to describe the two distinct work sectors. Each sector has a different means of compensation: different salaries, different benefits, and different pensions, if any. Claiming that employees in the private sector NEVER get raises is a load of crap. You do–individually, not collectively, as unionized public employees do. So quit your waaaaahhhhhning about your lack of a raise and lack of a company-provided pension OR join the public sector and see how “cushy” our jobs aren’t.


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I have worked in both and know the truth. There are some good people in public sector but there is also a ton of dead weight,that because of the unions and system, cannot be fired.


People I worked with for the state would literally come to work for 8 hours and put thei heads on their desks all day. Others worked hard but eventually the system got the best of them.


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While there are some teachers who do not work as hard as the majority, NO teacher can just put his or her head on the desk all day. The vast majority of teachers–and administrators–earn every penny they’re paid.


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My kids have had teachers who do the equivalent of head on the desk each year. They havent been teaching 20 years, they’ve taught the same year 20times.


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You have no clue what it takes to be a teacher.


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My dad was a teacher and my wife was a public school and is Noel a private school teacher. I’d say I have a pretty good idea.


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Since the pay increases are compounded on top of each other, they now have a 12.5% pay increase since 2012. Very few citizens have earned anything close to that increase. We are also doubling the funding to CALPERS for teacher pensions to $9 billion a year and that is expected to increase by at least 40% more in the coming years. Add to that, the increased costs of providing health insurance benefits. The cost of government on all levels is crushing California and it’s going to get worse year after year with no relief in sight.


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School teachers’ retirement is through CalSTRS, not CalPERS. Big difference.


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Both loot the taxpayers to prop up their failed funding


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Only 3% of CalSTRS (teachers’ plan) is funded by the taxpayers. There are no health care benefits after retirement. Despite paying into social security, they can’t collect it.


CalPERS recipients collect social security, have health care benefits for life, have to work fewer years to become vested and receive a higher salary in retirement.


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Many districts offer retiree benefits.

In fact, LA Unified offers their teachers LIFETIME benefits.


SLO Coastal, Santa Maria Bonita and Lucia Mar offers their retirees 55+ health insurance until they roll onto Medicare.


Teachers that work for the County office of Ed do not have it that good!


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Many CalPers pensioners do NOT receive social security or health care benefits. So better check your facts.


“Salary in retirement” is a function of how much you earned per year, and how long you worked, so when one becomes vested has nothing to do with calculating retirement benefit amounts. So check your facts again.


The big retirement ripoff in most pension systems is that people who make really outrageous amounts of money, the people already rich, get really big retirement checks, and that’s not fair: Retirement pensions should take care of general needs, not keep the rich richer. There should be some ceiling on retirement pensions, at least public ones.


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CalSTRS — California’s pension fund for teachers — said it is facing a $73.7 billion shortfall and expects to run out of funding by 2046. The pension fund’s deficit is growing by $15 million per day, according to the statement.


CalPERS -The pension fund’s $277.2 billion of investments leaves a $144.3 billion unfunded debt to cover 1.6 million state employees and retirees’ pensions, according to CalPERS’ October 31, 2013 report.


Big difference indeed – their both broke and you know who will have to foot the bill for the layabouts that they pay for the rest of their lives.


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You don’t know how to read these reports. Those obligations extend out about 70 years. Neither fund is in any danger of running out of money. And no, there’s no looming taxpayer “bailout” for CalPers proper. (That’s not the case for cities and local water districts, etc., that contract with CalPers to administer their own pensions, which are seldom run with the care of CalPers’ own business.)


Furthermore, the reports you cite are old ones. They reflect the recession’s hit to the endowments of these two plans. Maybe you didn’t notice, but the financial economy has snapped back, and CalPers has added billions to its fund base in the last couple of years. Their investments are so well run they’re getting rates of return you could never dream of getting on your own money. In the long run, that means they’ll save taxpayers a bundle on state pensions.


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Typical of the malcontents, isn’t it? They rip on pensions and, as indicated by Johnny’s post, they have no idea what they are talking about.


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Actually, CALPERS retirees get COLAs much like social security recipients. Isn’t that fair?


My employer thinks old people are more important than my kids. The old folks got 16% from 2008 to 2015, as compared to 4% at my job during the same period.


If CalSTRS is even worse than CALPERS, then ……


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It is based on the Consumer Price Index I believe…..


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Of course they are! Only in a unionized company can the employees hold the tax payers hostage for what amounts to 10 times the rate of inflation.


Now accept what you are offered and go back to “indoctrinating” your future union members.


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I see that FOX Noise has been “indoctrinating” you. What specific ideas are Lucia Mar/SLO County students being indoctrinated into believing? Liberal math? Bleeding-heart science? Commie English? Socialistic Social Studies? Please specify your conservative concerns so we can get right after establishing a RED SCARE panel to root out whatever issues have you all riled up about public education.


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I don’t get it…..this isn’t difficult folks….


Why don’t they just take the average % of all of the raises given to all the administrators across the entire district and that is the teachers’ % raise for the year? No raise for admins, no raise for teachers…..golden parachute raise for admins retiring in a few years, the teachers get a big raise…..you get the idea.


Let all boats rise with the tide……


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Because we are the tide, not one of the boats.


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Our problem is that “we the tide” have to keep lifting the dead weight teachers, along with the competent ones.


In the private sector, we have no obligation to keep the shipwrecks afloat. In the public sector, our children suffer because we cannot differentiate pay for competence. We are stuck with the lot of teachers, good or bad.


Good teachers should be outraged that their union only allows them to “float with the tide.” They receive no additional compensation for being good at what they do, no merit increases. The overall effect is that the system promotes sloth. Teachers are going to get their raises regardless of competence.


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Greater than 50% voted for the new contract. Can we move on yet?


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If you are not being paid your value at your job, rather than whine about it – quit, and go get the job that will pay you what you are worth.


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Bunch a whiners who have never worked in the real world!


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Please define the “real world” conditions that you work under that are more demanding than the conditions that teachers work under.


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People are paid based on the amount of revenue they generate for the company.thats how the real world works. If I have a bad quarter, I will be fired.


A teacher is paid based on how long they have been there, whether they are any food at their job or not. If they have a bad 20 years, they can’t be fired.


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Any good at their job. We know there is no food at their job since Michelle Hussein obamas school lunch programs kicked in.


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First of all, most of my family and friends work in the private sector, so don’t try to snow me about revenue-generation. The truth is that a very small percentage of private sector employees actually GENERATE revenue for their companies. The vast majority enter data, confer with customers, or something else that is tangentially related to whatever their business deals in. With regard to public sector employees, how would you propose to measure the “revenue/value” generated by teachers or fire fighters or cops (aside from the tickets they issue)? Aside from saving a child’s life, which cops and fire fighters often do, what could be more important than enriching a child’s life with learning in a classroom run by a caring, intelligent teacher? Where are your priorities, sir? What is it that YOU produce/generate for the good people of SLO County? What difference are you making in the lives of your fellow citizens?


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