GGUSD School Board Votes to Continue Reduction in Monthly Stipend

The Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education unanimously voted Tuesday to continue the reduction in its members' monthly stipend by 2.25 percent, which is equivalent to the salary reduction taken by all other district employees.

Reflecting the reduction, the trustees’ lowered monthly stipend remains at $733. The board’s initial action to decrease the stipend took place last November, retroactive to July 1, 2010.

The GGUSD, which includes Los Amigos High School as well as Allen, Monroe and Northcutt Elementary Schools in Fountain Valley, is the third-largest district in Orange County and the 11th-largest in the state with more than 49,000 students. The state education code sets the stipend of board members in districts with less than 60,000 students but more than 25,000 students at $750 per month, and allows governing boards to annually increase the compensation of individual trustees by up to 5 percent.

It has been the practice of current and past GGUSD boards of education not to exercise this provision, and the stipend remained at $750 per month until the board’s vote last year to reduce its compensation.