OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) — Another school district is facing some tough decisions. The Oakland Unified School District must close a $95 million deficit for the coming school year. The district will vote to send out hundreds of layoff notices Wednesday night.
After more than a decade of overspending and using one-time-only funds and paying back a loan to the state, the Oakland Board of Education is now faced with cutting $95 million out of the budget for the school year that begins in the fall. The process will begin Wednesday evening with the consideration of layoff notices.
“It’s a net loss of between 100-150 full-time employees, but there’s a lot within that there are a lot of job classifications going from 12 months to 11 months. We have something we are eliminating we are also adding positions,” said Oakland School Board Director Mike Hutchinson.
Oakland’s layoff focuses on classified employees, which can include reading tutors, teaching assistants, program managers, and food service staff.
“I think that our main priority is to keep the cuts away from school sites as much as possible prioritizing our students and the staff who work with our students,” said Oakland School Board President Jennifer Brouhard.
Closing that $95 million gap will also rely on $40 million dollars in reserve funds, which will only be available for the coming year and will rely on a variety of cost-cutting measures.
“We are capping the total expenditures for contracts at 125 million which is a savings of 60 million,” Brouhard said. “We are also capping the total of expenditures under books and supplies at a certain amount.”
While school closures and mergers are not part of the budget for the next school year, that does not mean it won’t come up in the future.
“As a community, we need to look at how do we resource the kind of schools we want to have and make sure they are equitably spread across our city,” Hutchinson said.
OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) — Another school district is facing some tough decisions. The Oakland Unified School District must close a $95 million deficit for the coming school year. The district will vote to send out hundreds of layoff notices Wednesday night. After more than a decade of overspending and using one-time-only funds and paying back a […]
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