LAUSD trying to 'stop the bleeding'

PROPOSAL: District working on plan to save $304 million through furloughs, borrowing.

In a bid to save thousands of jobs and preserve school programs, Los Angeles Unified officials began negotiating an "emergency budget plan" with employee unions this week that could save the district up to $304 million.

Drafted by incoming LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, the plan would ask most district employees to take up to 12 furlough days next year, a move that would require cutting the school calendar by a week for the third year in a row.

The plan also suggests borrowing from other district accounts, including from LAUSD's health and welfare benefits reserve and unused workers' compensation funds.

The Los Angeles Board of Education was expected to discuss the plan on Tuesday.

Officially taking over as superintendent next Friday, Deasy said the plan is a temporary solution essential to keeping schools operating next year.

"This is a tourniquet to stop the bleeding ... to keep us as whole and as stable as possible for now," Deasy said Thursday.

LAUSD is facing a deficit of $408million for the 2011-12 school year, which, without other financial solutions, would force the layoffs of more than 5,000 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians.

Deasy said his proposal could save up to 80 percent of the expected layoffs.

Reductions in staff, projected for more than two-thirds of the district's schools, would cause class size increases at nearly all grade levels, and budget cuts would also

drastically reduce funding for music, art, preschool and magnet programs.

While district officials sent layoff notices to all threatened workers last month, most believed the worst-case scenario would not come to fruition.

Officials had counted on the state Legislature placing a series of tax extensions on the June ballot, which would have reduced the district's deficit by about half.

But after negotiations to put them on the ballot broke down in Sacramento, school board members asked Deasy to create a new budget plan that could save jobs and expedite negotiations with the district's nine employee unions.

"We're in a new reality," said LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer. "We are at a different level of crisis."

A starting point for negotiations, the new budget plan would realize $144 million in savings if all nine employee unions agree to at least 12 furlough days, although some employees could have to take as many as 15 furlough days.

In addition to cutting the school year, some of those furlough days would come from cutting back on paid holidays.

The plan also proposes borrowing $112 million from the district's health and welfare benefits committee - a group run by labor leaders which manages health care costs for all LAUSD employees. That group has amassed a reserve of some $200 million to cover expected health care cost increases over the next few years.

The budget plan also suggests underfunding necessary district accounts, like workers' compensation, to realize another $60 million in savings.

Deasy said his goal was to reach a deal with unions as soon as possible and no later than May 1, to have enough time to rescind layoff notices to employees.

"If we want to rescind these notices and give people peace we have to get this done by May 1 ... and I believe we can do that," Deasy added.

While most union leaders agree that a jobs-saving solution must be found, it is still unclear if the district's demands will be accepted by employees that have already had furlough days.

A.J. Duffy, president of United Teacher Los Angeles, said "giving peace" to educators targeted for layoff was of "paramount importance."

But he also said he wanted to reach a "grand agreement" that includes a "wide range of issues that affect teaching and learning."

Duffy declined to describe those issues, since negotiations with the district are confidential, but sources close to the negotiations said the teachers union could use the budget talks as leverage to eliminate some controversial district reform efforts.

Those reform efforts could include LAUSD's landmark "Public School Choice" plan, which allows groups inside and outside the district to compete over rights to run schools.

The two-year-old effort has been supported by charter school operators, who have gained the right to run some 10 LAUSD schools since the plan launched.

The teachers union, though, has fiercely opposed the plan, calling it a "giveaway of schools."

"We can't have a deal that is done so quickly, and not comprehensive enough, that it won't satisfy us or pass our membership," Duffy said.

Some employee union leaders also questioned asking workers to accept more concessions.

Connie Moreno, a representative of the California School Employees Association, said members of her union - which primarily represents school office clerks and library aides - have agreed to furloughs for the last two years even though some of them are among the lowest paid in the district.

Yet even after sacrificing, many still lost their jobs.

"Now they want us to accept this without any guarantee of what jobs will be saved," Moreno said.

"We don't have any confidence that they know what they are doing."

Cameron Diaz Majandra Delfino Rachael Leigh Cook Emmy Rossum Garcelle Beauvais