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Azusa educators urge board to allow salary increases in upcoming negotiations
Summary
A representative of the Azusa Educators Association asked the board during public comment on Oct. 7 to give bargaining teams flexibility to negotiate salary increases for all certificated staff rather than directing the district's initial proposal to medical benefits only.
A leader from the Azusa Educators Association urged the Board of Education on Oct. 7 to avoid a settlement that places the entire increase into employee medical benefits and to instead allow salary movement that reaches all certificated staff.
Why it matters: board members went into closed session after public comment to continue labor negotiations. The issue affects bargaining for roughly 400 certificated non‑management employees and touches pay, benefits and equity across the workforce.
At the start of the meeting's closed‑session public comment period, a representative who identified themselves as Make Zavala and described the audience as AEA leadership said the union accepted last year’s settlement because of declining enrollment and a 1% cost‑of‑living adjustment. The speaker told the board the district’s initial proposal this season would allocate $3,500 to medical benefit plans rather than moving amounts onto the salary schedule.
"Out of our 400 or so certificated employees that are non‑management, we have between 50 and 75, as our best calculation, who don't take benefits. That means they get nothing," Make Zavala said, adding that many staff choose a spouse's plan because district plans are expensive.
The speaker said the union could not accept a proposal that leaves the salary schedule unchanged for two years. "It is impossible for us to go for 2 years with nothing going on to the salary schedule. Our people need to have a monetary increase of some sort, and we need it to go to everybody," they said, asking the board to allow bargaining teams flexibility to "come to an agreement that meets all of our interests."
The comment preceded the board's adjournment into closed session; no public vote or board response on the specifics was recorded in open session. The superintendent and board subsequently resumed open session at 7 p.m.
No formal bargaining proposal text or a district response to the union's request appears in the public transcript. The speaker framed the remarks as a request for flexibility in closed‑session bargaining rather than a formal proposal to the board.
