LOS ANGELES — In a massive and raucous street rally Tuesday during the Los Angeles Board of Education meeting, school union leaders spoke out against expected budget cuts that are already affecting decisions at individual schools, where administrators are making plans that will likely cut employee hours or student programs.

As crowds cheered, angry union leaders lashed out against called Supt. Alberto Carvalho, saying he is reneging on a pledge to protect jobs and employee benefits.

Carvalho had no immediate response — he was participating in a board meeting, hundreds of feet away inside district headquarters, in which a major focus was supposed to be school safety, a discussion that was largely postponed. But Carvalho has repeatedly said he will avoid layoffs in the face of budget shortfalls.

At a school board budget meeting last week — while also noting estimates that about 10% of school systems statewide plan to lay off workers — Carvalho repeated his pledge.

"There are over 110 districts ... right now that are facing teacher layoffs," Carvalho said. "This is not a scare tactic. This is what we know."

School systems statewide have had to contend with fallout from a state budget deficit and the expiration of state and federal pandemic aid.

L.A. school officials have projected general fund revenue for next year of $9.14 billion. Spending for next year is estimated at $10.89 billion. The district cannot sustain such a deficit indefinitely, officials said. Even so, cost savings have been achieved so far with limited impact on students and staff, Carvalho said.

"There is an adamant position, adopted by the board, to protect that which is indispensable and, for us, teachers and support staff are indispensable to a well-functioning, well-run school system that prizes and elevates the needs of kids," he added. "We've negotiated historic salary increases — not easy, but we did it... without reducing by a single dollar employee benefits."

The union leaders, however, accused Carvalho of pushing cutbacks down to the school level, where school communities would have to choose which employees or programs to preserve, cut back or do without.

"We are here to expose that deception behind Carvalho's cuts because they are deceiving," said Max Arias, executive director of Local 99 of Service Employees International Union, which represents the largest number of non-teaching workers, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians and teacher aides. "It's like if we live in two worlds. We live in the real world. He lives in a world where he says there are no cuts, there are no layoffs. But they're happening."

...continued

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.