Following more than six months of negotiations, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District and its teachers have halted normal negotiations for a new contract and are turning to a third-party mediator for assistance. 

The hold up in negotiations is the request for a salary increase by the teachers’ union.   District officials claim the increase would drain financial reserves in the district within just a few years.   Union leaders say teachers are undervalued and the salary increase they are seeking would not drain resources. 

According to the head of the teachers’ union bargaining team, “We feel that they do not care about us.   They do not respect us.   There is a lot of times that we feel that we are going great not because of the direction coming from the top, but in spite of it.  ”

Over the course of the six months of negotiations, seven offers have been made.   All of the potential contracts included pay increases, but the union believed they did not do enough to bring compensation in the district up to speed with other area districts.    The final offer from the district was for a 3.1 percent salary increase that included no retroactive pay.   Previous offers had included retroactive pay. 

The two parties agreed to declare an impasse at the end of August and pursue third-party mediation. 

Neither party has commended on the salary increase requested by the union, but the district stated the increased would drain $8.4 million from district reserves and require millions extra in funding the district would be unable to cover.