Add The California Post on Google A northern California school district is facing $33 million in budget cuts for the next school year, which could lead to significant layoffs.
Palo Alto Unified School District’s new superintendent, Jason Glass, says figuring out how to close the district’s budget gap will be the school board’s most important task over the next two years — and he expects the process to be painful.
It comes as other school districts in the state struggle financially as well: The Sacramento City Unified School District is also scrambling to avoid a state takeover after county education officials recently rejected its financial rescue plan.
As for Palo Alto, Glass said he expects finger-pointing, personal attacks and arguments that the district is bloated or could solve its financial problems simply by spending less on things such as paper, lightbulbs and copy machines, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post.
But the deficit is too large for those kinds of savings to make up the difference, Glass said, meaning the board will have to consider eliminating programs, services and jobs that are otherwise considered valuable.
“We’re going to have to fire people,” board member Shounak Dharap said during an Aug. 18 meeting, according to the Daily Post.
“These conversations are going to make people scared and angry. We have to have them anyways,” Glass said.
The district will first try to limit layoffs by leaving vacant positions unfilled and moving existing employees into other jobs, Glass said. The cuts have already reached the district office, where Glass has decided not to fill some administrative positions.
Board member Shana Segal said she wants the board to discuss making another attempt to renew the district’s parcel tax through a special election next spring. The proposed renewal fell short in the June 2 election.
A significant portion of the district’s projected deficit stems from recently approved labor agreements that gave employees a 10.4% raise and $10,000 in bonuses, according to the Daily Post.
Dharap said the board had wanted to avoid the possibility of a strike as a new superintendent took over the district, but the agreements have now left Glass in the “unenviable position” of having to recommend cuts.
Former board member Ken Dauber criticized the board for approving what he called “unaffordable and excessively generous” labor contracts.
“The board has created a financial crisis entirely of its own making,” Dauber said at Tuesday’s meeting. “This is a disastrous outcome that was entirely foreseeable … and unfortunately now the community is going to have to pay that consequence.”
The district faces a March 15 deadline to issue layoff notices, Chief Business Officer Charen Yu said.
And the financial pressure is expected to continue. Yu said the board is looking at another $10 million in reductions for the 2028–29 school year.
One of the biggest variables will be property tax revenue, an especially important source of funding for Palo Alto Unified.
The district expects to get updated property tax projections from the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office in early September, according to Yu.
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