Struggling LAUSD awards staff whopping raises as leadership faces probes, criminal charges

The cash-strapped Los Angeles Unified School District tentatively agreed to hand its staff generous pay raises to avoid a teachers strike — even while the troubled district’s students are scoring lower than the rest of the state and its leadership faces investigations from federal and local authorities.

The nation’s second largest district narrowly avoided a catastrophic shutdown after its leadership reached an agreement with Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union just after 2 a.m. Tuesday.

Acting LAUSD Superintendent Andrés E. Chait — who’s filling in for Aberto Carvalho while Carvalho faces a federal probe — announced the deal with a statement patting the district on the back.

“We are proud to have reached resolution with all of our labor partners,” said Chait, who took over as LAUSD’s temporary superintendent last month, after Carvalho’s home and office were raided by the federal agents.

“We are grateful for the collaboration that made this possible,” he added.

Local 99 represents thousands of essential school workers including teacher aides, gardeners, custodians, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and tech support staff. 

The deal handed the union’s members raises of 24% and more health-care benefits, among other perks, marking the third third and final labor agreement needed by the district to avert a shutdown of classes for 390,000 LAUSD school kids. The district previously settled its contracts with teachers and administrators on Sunday.

Before it made the deal with Local 99, LAUSD came to an agreement with United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents about 37,000 teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists and librarians.

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The UTLA deal gives teachers a 14% raise over a two-year agreement. The agreement also raises starting pay for teachers to $77,000 from $68,965.

By way of comparison, Los Angeles Police Department officers start at $86,192.

The district on Sunday also came to an agreement with the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents about 3,000 principals, assistant principals and other managers. That deal includes a pay increase of about 12% over two years. 

Former LASUD school board member David Tokofsky told The Post the new deals will cost the district about $550 million per year over the next two years.

The district can afford to take the financial hit in the short term due to generous state funding, he explained, but the deals don’t mean staffers will do a better job teaching kids.

“It doesn’t improve the quality of any of the work,” he said.  

Before the new labor deals, LAUSD projected a $1.6-billion deficit by the 2027-28 school year, driven by steep enrollment declines that impact the district’s per pupil finding from the state, and also the end of federal pandemic relief money.

The new deals will increase the financial pressure on the district, which was considering layoffs to close its projected deficit. They also come at a time when the LAUSD is facing a leadership crisis and criminal investigations into staff.

Carvalho is still collecting his $440,000 annual paycheck while on leave following the bombshell federal probe that broke in February. No criminal charges have been filed in the case, and the Board of Education has yet to say whether Carvalho will stay in the job.

Last month, former LAUSD technical project manager Hong “Grace” Peng was charged for allegedly running a $22 million kickback scheme with a Texas tech contractor hired to work for the district.

District officials four days ago announced that LA Unified filed a suit against the tech contractor, Innive, Inc., and its CEO Gautham Sampath, to recover some of the funds.

Overall, LAUSD students lag slightly behind the rest of the state in their reading and math exams. LA students also post slightly worse graduation rates than the rest of California.

“Yes, good educators and staff deserve fair wages. But this latest round of major pay raises comes at a time when fraud, waste, national scandals, and academic failure continue to plague that district, while more than half of our students still can’t read or write at grade level,” Sonja Shaw, the newly announced GOP pick for California State Superintendent, who oversees education statewide, told The Post.

“With limited dollars available, these deals will force devastating classroom cuts and layoffs. We must first root out the waste, fix the failures, and restore accountability. Instituting these raises before doing so means we are risking making things even worse in an already fragile situation.”

All three labor deals still need to be ratified by union members and the Board of Education, but the tentative agreements will keep schools open in the meantime.