Funding system in local district affects salaries

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District is busy negotiating salaries for its teachers after a report showed that they were the lowest-paid in any unified district in the county. Whatever the district ends up paying, however, one thing is certain: Taxpayers will foot most of the bill.

That’s been the case since 1998, when Newport-Mesa became a basic aid district — meaning that it gets the majority of its money through local property taxes, rather than state and federal funding. To qualify for basic aid, a district needs to have high enough property values in the area and a small enough student population for the funds to cover.

Newport-Mesa is one of two basic-aid unified districts in Orange County, along with the Laguna Beach Unified School District. When a six-member task force gave its report on teacher salaries at Tuesday’s school board meeting, it shared a surprising fact: Laguna Beach pays its teachers the most of any unified district in the county, while Newport-Mesa pays the least.

Why the difference? The answer may come down to two kinds of numbers: those on the attendance sheet and those on the Century 21 sign.

With 2,860 students, Laguna Beach Unified has roughly one-tenth Newport-Mesa’s enrollment of 21,153. In addition, Laguna Beach’s sky-high property values ensure a generous income from taxpayers, while Newport-Mesa — which encompasses swank neighborhoods in Newport Coast and Corona del Mar along with rundown areas on the Westside of Costa Mesa — barely made the basic-aid cut in 1998.

“They certainly have a range of property values there,” said Patty Beaver, the human resources coordinator for Laguna Beach Unified. “In Laguna Beach, I don’t think you can buy anything for less than $2 million.”

Jim Rogers, the president of Newport-Mesa’s teachers union, said most districts enjoy salary increases when the state makes cost-of-living adjustments. But in a basic-aid district like Newport-Mesa any contract changes must come through negotiations with the union. Newport-Mesa receives state and federal funds, but they tend to go toward categorical items such as special education.

Last month, Newport-Mesa administrators began meeting with the teachers union to work toward a goal set in a 1999 contract: getting teacher salaries between the mean and the 75th percentile for the county. Tom Antal, the director of secondary curriculum and a member of the bargaining team, said the district might end up streamlining programs to provide extra dollars for teachers.

“The district has a finite amount of money, so I think part of this could come from being careful with what we spend on various programs,” he said. “The key is the services we’re delivering to students. We’re constantly analyzing programs to test that one dollar spent on a program gets one dollar of results for a student.”

TEACHER EARNINGS FOR

ORANGE COUNTY UNIFIED DISTRICTS

DISTRICT

AVERAGE ANNUAL SALARY

AVERAGE ANNUAL COMPENSATION

Laguna Beach

$78,988 $89,988

Garden Grove

$72,536 $86,786

Los Alamitos

$71,019 $82,019

Placentia- Yorba Linda

$69,014 $79,665

Irvine $68,291 $76,547

Brea-Olinda

$67,969 $77,969

Orange $67,649 $77,649

Capistrano

$67,468 $78,488

Santa Ana

$66,683 $76,287

Saddleback

$65,695 $76,737

Tustin $64,844 $74,824

Newport- Mesa

$64,292 $75,171

Note: Average compensation includes salary and benefits.