L.A. Schools Chief Offers to Cut Salary : Education: Anton says he will return 10% of his $164,555 pay. He also presents plan to reorganize the district, which needs to cut budget by $317 million.

Pledging to “share in the pain” wrought by upcoming budget cuts, Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Bill Anton volunteered Wednesday to return 10% of his $164,555 annual salary to the school system this year.

Anton’s $16,455 pay cut is but a tiny drop in the bucket for a district needing to trim $317 million from its 1991-92 budget.

But the symbolic value of the gesture may loom large as the district prepares to begin negotiating contracts with employee unions representing almost 60,000 teachers, principals, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, plumbers, clerks and others.

Teachers union President Helen Bernstein lauded Anton for cutting his salary, but said that will not influence the district’s 30,000 teachers--who make an average $44,555 annually--to do likewise.

“Symbolically, it’s very nice,” she said. “But asking employees to take pay cuts is not the way out of this budget crisis.”

Anton stopped short of urging others to reduce their salaries, but declared that top administrators “should not be immune” from the effects of the fiscal crisis that will force cutbacks in school services and may lead to massive layoffs of teachers and others.

Anton announced the pay cut as he formally unveiled his plan to reorganize the district.

His proposal, which has been tentatively approved by the school board, would save $10 million by paring 155 administrative positions and transferring authority over schools from district headquarters to local management teams.

The plan is expected to help counter a public perception that the district is top-heavy with administrators who are far removed from day-to-day operations at local schools.

But Anton said its primary purpose is to improve accountability and responsibility among administrators, ultimately improving the achievement of the district’s 625,000 students.

By decentralizing decision-making, the proposal seems aimed at helping avoid planning confusion--such as the assignment last fall of 100 teachers to schools where they were not needed, a mistake that cost $4 million.

But Anton denied that the plan was prompted by any specific incident, or that it is an indication that the current arrangement is failing.

While many details have yet to be worked out, Bernstein said it “appears to go along with what we’ve been saying for years--that (the superintendent) needs to have a more efficient operation.”

In addition to shifting some responsibilities, the plan creates two departments:

The School Reform unit would oversee school-based management and the planned reconfiguration of the district to include kindergarten through fifth grade in elementary schools, sixth through eighth grade in middle schools and ninth through 12th grade in high schools.

A Parent and Community Service Resource unit would coordinate district relationships with community, business and school organizations, and work to reduce interracial tensions and increase multicultural awareness.