The state legislative session comes to an end this week, and ACSA has been working on a flurry of proposals addressing salary and benefit abuse issues.
A six-bill package picked up steam in the Legislature following a number of high-profile cases of egregious behavior, most notably public employees in the City of Bell receiving excessive compensation.
ACSA Legislative Advocate Laura Preston and others in the education community have been successful in many efforts to mitigate or forestall negative elements of these bills that particularly impact educators.
Assembly Bill 827, De La Torre, D-South Gate, would have required that a summary of a superintendent evaluation be conducted in open session of a school governing board and that the documents be made available as public record. That provision was eliminated. ACSA maintained it was a violation of the United States and California Constitutions, which protect individual privacy.
AB 827 now stipulates a non-represented employee who reports directly to the governing board shall not include in their contract: an automatic renewal of the contract; an automatic increase in compensation in excess of a COLA; or an automatic increase that is linked to another contract.
Before a school board increases the salary of the excluded employee above a COLA, AB 827 requires that a performance review shall be done in compliance with the existing Brown Act and Public Records Act.
Another De La Torre bill, AB 1955, remained problematic at press time.
AB 1955 includes an amendment to the Brown Act requiring that for unrepresented persons who report directly to a legislative body of a local agency that five days prior to ratifying or amending a contract, the employee’s name, position, salary, benefits, retirement and any other forms of compensation will be posted on the local agency website.
AB 1955 originally contained a seven-day notification requirement. ACSA worked with Assemblyman De La Torre, and he was willing to reduce the requirement to five-days only.
AB 194, Torrico, D-Fremont, contained a concern that was addressed when the bill failed to be heard.
ACSA maintained that California State Teachers Retirement System recipients should be removed from requirements in AB 194 that after Jan. 1, 2011, the maximum salary retirement benefits can be based on shall not exceed 125 percent of the governor’s salary. Right now, the cap is approximately $218,000.
Such a cap is unfair to CalSTRS members, as there is no Social Security collection for participants to offset this cap.
California Public Employees Retirement System members receive Social Security in addition to their retirement benefits. ACSA is asking that this provision apply only to CalPERS.
Additional salary and benefit transparency bills include:
• AB 2064, Huber, D-Lodi, requiring a school district and joint powers authority to post on its website annually updated salary information for each elected official, superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent and associate superintendent.
• Senate Bill 501, Correa, D-Santa Ana, which requires a specified school district or joint powers authority employee to file an additional disclosure form through the secretary of state.
• AB 192, Gatto, D-Burbank, will not be heard this session.
Click here for legislative updates or contact Laura Preston at lpreston@acsa.org.