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In another sign of improving financial fortunes for LA Unified, the school board today approved multi-year contracts for many of the district’s most senior staff.

In a break from previous years, when high level administration staffers worked on one-year contracts, several of Superintendent John Deasy’s most senior aides were given contracts of two and, in some cases, three years.

Deasy declined to comment on the board’s action but insisted that none of the 52 contracts approved by the board included a raise, but specific salaries were not announced.

Among those who will remain on Team Deasy for three years, through June 30, 2017, are Chief Strategy Officer Matt Hill, Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly, the district’s chief lobbyist, Edgar Zazueta and LA Schools Police Chief, Steven Zipperman.

Deasy’s contract only runs through June 2016.

The contract renewals for staffers come at a sensitive time for the district as it embarks on negotiations with all of its labor partners, including UTLA, the teachers union. In general, LA Unified employees have not had raises over many years.

In the case of UTLA, teachers have been working under the conditions of an expired contract for three years.

School board member Monica Ratliff abstained from voting on all the contracts, which otherwise were approved unanimously.

“My abstention on every one of the senior management contracts is unequivocally not a reflection on the work of the numerous dedicated, extremely hardworking employees whose contracts were up for renewal today,” she told LA School Report.

“My abstention was based on the fact that I cannot, in good conscience, support very public performance metrics for our Superintendent, a publicly available multi-faceted evaluation template for our teachers, and then vote for senior management contracts that do not include publicly available accountability standards or metrics on which to evaluate performance.”

An effort to reach UTLA President Warren Fletcher for comment was unsuccessful.