This October marks Cheryl Ausan’s 31st year making breakfast and lunch for hundreds of schoolchildren a day.
She’s been stationed in cafeteria kitchens within the Santa Maria-Bonita School District (SMBSD) for all 31 of those years. For the past 20, she’s held the title of food service worker at Ida Redmond Taylor Elementary School on Carlotti Drive.
Accepting the fact that her wages at year 31 are equal to most fast food employees on day one wasn’t a problem for Ausan until recently, she said, when talks between her labor union and the school district about a raise dispute reached a boiling point.
“For me, 1 percent is less than 20 cents an hour,” Ausan told the Sun.
That’s the highest percentage raise the district was willing to offer its cafeteria workers, custodians, instructional aides, and other non-teacher positions broadly defined as classified employees who are part of the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Chapter 129 union.
“The only reason I’m still here is I’ve put in so much time and I’m getting ready to retire in the next four or five years,” said Ausan, who described her CalPERS benefits as “a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Melissa Gutierrez, president of CSEA Chapter 129, told the Sun that the union and the school district reached an impasse over the offer in September. She said the next step will be working with a state-assigned mediator.
Months of prior negotiations between the two agencies included a survey distributed to about 1,000 classified employees during the spring. Of the 200 employees who responded, 72 percent voted for an 8 percent raise or higher, while 28 percent voted for a 1 to 7 percent raise.
Ausan was among those in the latter camp.
“I didn’t want to be greedy,” she said with a laugh.
When the union presented the survey results to district leaders before the end of the 2024-25 school year, the slideshow quoted comments from employees:
“I am constantly torn between keeping a job I am happy at and love and looking for something that will pay me enough to pay rent and eat.”
“I love this job and everything it entitles but not making a living wage is killing me.”
“My family is needing to use our credit cards for basic necessities.”
According to Chapter 129 President Gutierrez, the 15-minute slideshow didn’t garner feedback from district officials in attendance.
“When we had presented that in negotiations with the district’s team, there was no response. I mean, people were on their cellphones during the presentation. People were on their laptops,” Gutierrez said. “We really don’t feel that we’re being heard at all.”
Gutierrez’s union declared its intention to flip SMBSD’s elected board—filling it with supportive members—in light of the impasse during the last week of September, the same week the board approved promotions for four district director positions with a 5-0 vote.
“They tell us that there’s no money: ‘We can’t give you more than 1 percent, but we can find money for all these management positions.’ That’s really been upsetting,” Gutierrez said. “It’s time to find community leaders that will listen and will ask the hard questions, and not just rubber stamp everything, and just nod and agree with the district.”
SMBSD Deputy Superintendent Matthew Beecher told the board in September that the raises attached to the promotions were appropriate based on changes in job descriptions.
“Creating new positions can be very expensive if you’re backfilling the position that it’s created from. That’s not the intention tonight,” Beecher said at the Sept. 10 meeting. “[We’re] making changes congruent with other school districts.”
Beecher said the annual total cost of the four raises combined was $48,000, dispersed between leadership roles in nutrition services, facilities maintenance, fiscal services, and contracts and procurement.
“It is important to properly reflect the responsibilities of these positions and the impact that their decisions have on the district and its mission,” said Beecher, who told the board that the goal behind the proposal was to give each coordinator with increased responsibilities a new “job description and title that makes sense, then create the compensation that aligns with that job description.”
CSEA Chapter 129 President Gutierrez said that the last time her union branch declared an impasse was about a new job description the union and school board couldn’t agree on how to compensate.
About four years ago, the district updated its job description for more than 20 computer lab aides employed at the time with new responsibilities, according to Gutierrez.
“[SMBSD] said, ‘We’re just updating the job description, they don’t need raises,’” Gutierrez recalled. “It was literally over 29 cents. The difference between us and the district was 29 cents, and they fought us until we went to impasse.”
About a month after a state mediator got involved, Gutierrez said the district’s negotiators “finally came back and said, ‘OK, fine, we’ll give it to you.’”
“I still don’t understand why they’re taking the hard way,” Gutierrez said. “I don’t know if the district’s team does it just to see if we’ll give up. … Sometimes I do feel that way.”
As for the district’s latest negotiations with CSEA over classified employees’ wages, SMBSD Public Information Officer Samantha Scroggin said that the district cannot discuss specifics.
“SMBSD values all our employees and their contributions and is committed to reaching a compensation agreement that highlights that appreciation,” Scroggin said in a statement via email. “The interest-based bargaining team, including management and classified staff, are working toward next steps on reaching an agreement.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 2 – Oct 9, 2025.
Here, Here! Thank you for bringing attention to our plight. I am a classified employee who relies on the County Food Distributions twice monthly for groceries. Our wages do not meet the living standard. The expenses for our benefits rose as of October 25, leaving us without a means to adjust our budget accordingly. We are earning less than we did last year, which is insufficient to offset the increased benefit costs and cost of living. It’s sad when you are unable to afford meat and fresh produce. We are definitely feeling the pinch.
“SMBSD values all our employees and their contributions and is committed to reaching a compensation agreement that highlights that appreciation,”
I would really hope that the SMBSD district would appreciate its staff more than giving them a $.15-$.40 cent raise, especially in this economy and cost of living in this area to be a part of this district. And for it to say that its trying to match other districts in this area, they are very far off. And also this is the biggest district in this area
THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS!! HOPING WE CLASSIFIED EMPLOYEES’ VOICES ARE HEARD THROUGHOUT OUR COMMUNITY!!!!!
They definitely need a raise. In my opinion the district is fighting it, not because there’s no money but because they view these positions as beneath them/not worthy of any more pay. They need to spend a few days seeing what these custodians actually do. The powers that be would not last an hour in their shoes. Get the big wigs to clean just one student bathroom. Have them meal prep. They WOULDN’T survive. I say 10%.
Thank you for sharing. It feels like this district has money for everything except the people that show up everyday and keep it running…
I would ask how much did certificated staff get in raises. Yes they are the teachers, but we classified are the support. The noon aids the ParaEducators, the food service workers, janitors, bus drivers, maintenances, the secretary’s, the ones running the school. We are worth more than the cents we get in a raise.
And we are unable to strike because of the contracts we have but if a teacher complains about not getting paid to wait with a student after school they get paid! Tell me where the union will come in and fight as hard as the teacher union does.