The Abridged version:
- After authorizing hundreds of pink slips earlier this month, the Sacramento City Unified school board took up another round Thursday.
- About 100 employees contested their potential terminations in public hearings. An administrative judge advised district officials not to go through with this batch of layoffs, but trustees were not required to take this recommendation.
- Despite the planned layoffs and other aggressive budget cuts, state experts have warned that Sacramento City Unified is barreling toward needing a rescue from the state.
The list of pink slip recipients at Sacramento City Unified School District grew this week.
School board members approved about 100 additional terminations — against a judge’s recommendation — on top of more than 500 layoff notices trustees authorized earlier this month.
The staff cuts come as district leaders race to gain control of a $170 million budget deficit and come up with enough savings to dodge state intervention.
The layoffs on the table at Thursday’s school board meeting concerned a fraction of employees who appealed their potential termination.
Trustees have said previously they expect to rescind some of the notices before the end of June, but they do not know yet how many jobs can be saved.
“This is a hard decision,” said board President Tara Jeane. “And I’m really tired of having to make decisions that are harder than they should be.”
‘We’re real’
Several of the affected employees appeared before the board to plead for their position.
“I want you guys to remember that we are individuals with families, hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears and feelings,” Steve Bruno, a database administrator whose position was cut, told the board. “We’re real, and we deserve to be acknowledged as such and treated with dignity and respect.”
The hundreds of positions on the chopping block consisted heavily of administrators and nonteaching staff.
“Behind every single layoff notice is a person,” said Karla Faucett, president of the district’s Service Employees International Union chapter.
Judge recommends scrapping layoffs
Most school district employees who receive a preliminary layoff notice are able to request a public hearing in front of an administrative law judge. Staff may claim there is not a valid reason to cut their jobs or that the district did not follow proper procedure in doling out the layoffs.
Judge Patrice De Guzman Huber determined the latter was the case for the roughly 100 employees who requested a review of their case.
She recommended the district rescind these pending layoffs.
However, California’s Education Code leaves the ultimate decision up to the school board. Lawyers for the district advised trustees not to heed De Guzman Huber, saying they believe she had erred in her judgement.
The board approved the layoffs 4-2.
Final doesn’t mean final
Despite giving the human resources department the OK to send out final notices, board members said their decision was not necessarily the final step.
Trustees can still pull back a number of pink slips before June 30.
But their ability to do so may be severely limited, given tight financial constraints.
“For every single position that I can 100% be convinced (to save),” said Trustee Taylor Kayatta, “then what else are we going to cut in place of that? That’s someone else who can convince me that this position is essential and critical for the district.”
Cuts at the top
Since early in the budget crisis last fall, board members have called for an overhaul at the top.
On Thursday, staff delivered a plan to cut roughly 1 in 6 employees from the district’s central office. The proposal also includes pay cuts for a handful of positions.
The reductions target higher up administrators, at the board’s direction, according to Erin Findley, chief academic officer. For example, the superintendent’s cabinet will shrink from six members to four.
The shake-up is expected to save about $26.6 million.
But Findley cautioned that with these cuts, the district will have to adjust to “doing less with less.”
“There is no way to reduce our footprint by 150 positions in the central office without a very real impact,” Findley said. “Response times will inherently be slower, and there will be moments where people feel their needs aren’t being met as quickly as in the past.”
Savannah Kuchar is a reporter covering education. She came to Sacramento to be a part of the Abridged team and contribute to a crucial local news source.