The Abridged version:
- Sacramento City Unified board members urged district staff to expedite budget cuts in order to avoid running out of cash as soon as this summer.
- The district’s new interim chief business officer is sorting through a fiscal solvency plan, designed by her predecessor and approved in November. The savings from these budget cuts may not be as high as previously thought, she said.
- If school district does not course correct soon, they could face a worst-case scenario of state intervention.
Sacramento City Unified leaders expressed frustration this week, saying the district is not moving fast enough to avoid possible insolvency within the year.
“Meeting after meeting have gone by and it feels like we haven’t really started digging into this yet,” Trustee Taylor Kayatta said during a school board meeting Thursday night. “We’ve been planning to plan.”
The district has been publicly grappling with a multi-million-dollar budget crisis since the start of the school year. Officials drafted a rightsizing plan in November, which the board subsequently passed just before Thanksgiving.
The plan included immediate changes such as supply budget reductions, hiring freezes and potential furloughs, as well as future cuts, like shrinking before- or after-school programs and administration level layoffs.
Progress reports still pending
Board members had requested regular progress updates from staff in charge of actualizing the budget cuts.
Two months since passing the fiscal solvency plan, though, these leaders say they are not hearing enough about any action taken.
“We do need to move quicker,” board member Jasjit Singh said in comments Thursday.
Sacramento City Unified is projected to run out of cash as soon as this summer. The approved recovery plan estimated finding just over $71 million in savings this school year.
However, the district’s new interim chief business officer, Lisa Grant-Dawson, was hesitant to confirm that goal could be accomplished.
Budget leadership changes
Sacramento City Unified’s previous chief business officer — who led the budget development and rightsizing efforts — departed the district at the end of November, shortly after finalizing the list of budget cuts.
Her departure contributed to concern from both the Sacramento County Office of Education and a state-funded team created to aid school districts in financial crisis.
The Sacramento district announced in December that Grant-Dawson, who served previously in the same role for Oakland Unified, would take on the interim job.
Grant-Dawson, less than two weeks into the job with Sacramento City Unified, said Thursday she is sorting through the plan laid out by her predecessor. Several items, she said, may not yield as much savings as originally thought or may take additional consideration to implement.
What if the district doesn’t move fast enough?
If Sacramento City Unified does not course correct fast enough, the district faces a rare, worst-case scenario: state receivership.
In that case, the school board would request a loan from the state, and in turn, cede their authority to a county-appointed administrator.
That loan must be paid off, with interest, before local control is restored. The average length of receivership is about 14 years. Out of the 10 districts that have faced this fate, three took more than 20 years to repay the state.
“I want us to move with urgency,” board member Chinua Rhodes said. “We have to get something done or else it’s going to be done to us.”
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.