The Sacramento City Unified School District has officially requested California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond intervene after Sacramento County rejected its financial plan.
(Previous coverage in the video player above)
SCUSD is facing an approximate budget deficit of $135 million and is trying to avoid being overtaken by the state.
The school board put together a $158 million solvency plan and approved a new contract with the Sacramento City Teachers Association, effective through June 2030. The plan was rejected by the Sacramento County Office of Education, prompting the board to approve an appeal of the county’s decision.
| PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Sac City Unified School District Board votes to appeal county’s rejection of financial plan
“We respectfully request your intervention pursuant to Education Code section 42127.6, subdivision (k). Specifically, we request that you find that the Sacramento County Office of Education (“SCOE”) and the Fiscal Advisor it appointed have been ineffective in assisting the District in resolving its current fiscal challenges,” the school board said in its appeal to Superintendent Thurmond.
County officials said the decision to rescind the district’s agreement is based on three factors:
- The plan would redirect assets from one account to another
- Using assets from the trust fund will cost more over time
- The agreement would restrict the district’s flexibility in the long-term
SCUSD’s solvency plan includes a hiring freeze and proposed cuts, and its agreement with the Sacramento City Teachers Association was said to unlock an estimated $97 million by using funds from the retiree health benefit fund, Medi-Cal reimbursements and money allocated for unfilled staff vacancies.
The district’s plan incorporates a one-time $31 million state block grant, $48 million in cash relief from the post-employment benefits fund used by retirees, and $78 million from reductions and savings.
“Many of the funds that they were proposing to put forward to solve the deficit were not new moneys. They were borrowed,” Dave Gordon, the county superintendent of schools, told KCRA 3 this week. “They were moneys borrowed from existing funding sources which were meant to fund other things such as the retiree health benefits that they offer. All of those things were not new money. They would have to be repaid, not just in their base amounts, but in the lost interest.”
The district’s appeal to Thurmond described the decision by the Sacramento County Office of Education’s Fiscal Advisor to rescind the agreement as “improper, inconsistent with their authority, and demonstrative of their ineffectiveness in supporting the District in a meaningful way.”
Thurmond is being asked by the SCUSD school board to review its solvency plan. The appeal calls on him to do one or more of the following:
- Find the Fiscal Advisor’s actions as ineffective
- Stay the rescission temporarily while you conduct the investigation in subdivision (k)
- Relieve the county superintendent of schools of their powers established by Education Code section 42127.6, and or in the alternative
- Grant the District’s request for an appeal of the rescission under Education Code 42127.9.
SCUSD’s appeal lists the terms of the agreement with the Sacramento County Teachers Association, the Sacramento County Office of Education’s reasons for disputing the deal and the board’s counters to those reasons.
“We recognize that our requests are uncommon and serious. However, restoring budget stability and retaining local control of our District’s budget is the most critical task that our Governing Board and District senior leaders face,” the school board said.
Julie Lautsch, a spokesperson for Thurmond’s office, issued the following statement:
“Superintendent Thurmond received a letter from Sacramento City Unified School District today requesting that the Superintendent intervene and hear an appeal of the Fiscal Advisor’s action to rescind the MOU with the Sacramento City Teachers Association,” Lautsch said. “Superintendent Thurmond is actively engaged in conflict resolution with the parties and has requested that they appear in his office on Thursday while we review the requests and relevant statutory requirements.”
If the district can’t get its deficit addressed, the state will take over by June of 2027.
See more coverage of top California stories here|Download our app|Subscribe to our morning newsletter|Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel.
