‘Living in a fantasy world’: Oakland school board rejects budget cuts, leaving fiscal future uncertain
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Board President Mike Hutchinson supported the budget cuts and said he believed before the meeting that there was unanimous support for the actions, but during the meeting, the teachers union unexpectedly voiced opposition to the cuts, he said. Hutchinson is shown at a school board meeting in a file photo from September 11, 2019.
The Oakland school district might be hurtling toward a fiscal cliff after the board failed this week to make budget cuts needed to give teachers raises and ward off a future financial crisis.
In an unexpected outcome, the board rejected recommended cuts at a Tuesday meeting, including the elimination of dozens of vacant special education teacher and aide positions, as well as future trims to classroom funding. The board, by a slim majority, also rejected the merger over the next two years of five pairs of schools currently co-located on the same campuses. Without the budget cuts, they currently have no way to pay for salary increases.
The Tuesday meeting came with just 24 hours notice, giving the public little time to digest the proposals.
The board voted at about 12:30 a.m., after spending three hours in closed session discussion on labor negotiations and then two hours debating the budget cuts.
The combative and ultimately futile meeting reflects a district in disarray, struggling to address significant declines in enrollment amid community and school board pressures to prevent school closures and avoid classroom cuts.
Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, in her request for the budget adjustments and cuts Tuesday, had urged the board to act.
Board President Mike Hutchinson also strongly supported the proposals and said he believed before the meeting that there was unanimous support for the actions and understanding about why they were needed. But during the meeting, the Oakland Education Association, which represents the district’s teachers, unexpectedly voiced opposition to the cuts, Hutchinson said.
“Literally, at the last minute, there was an objection to this from OEA,” he said. “Now I don’t know what we do going forward.”
After the union voiced opposition, three board members who had supported the cuts changed their minds, Hutchinson said. It appeared union leadership was killing the district’s ability to provide a raise to their members, he added.
“I was looking forward to us as a district being able to provide a historic raise for next school year and now the district does not have that ability at all,” Hutchinson said. “It was very disheartening to see the dynamics of who shut things down.”
He said he was shocked by the outcome.
Union officials did not immediately return requests for comment.
Board member Sam Davis also expressed frustration Wednesday at the lack of action, which leaves the district unable to offer teacher raises or address the county Office of Education concerns that without making cuts or finding more money, the district might not remain main solvent in the years to come.
“This isn’t rocket science,” he told The Chronicle. “It’s math. It’s addition and subtraction.”
Three board members — VanCedric Williams, Jennifer Brouhard and Valarie Bachelor — opposed the budget cuts and mergers, while Hutchinson and Clifford Thompson supported them. Board member Sam Davis, who had hoped to offer amendments, abstained given the late hour. The measures would have failed in a tie vote. Williams, Brouhard and Bachelor did not present an alternate plan to avoid a financial crisis and didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
While the board normally has seven members, Nick Resnick resigned in late February after conceding an election miscount erroneously put him in office. It’s unclear when a replacement will be in place.
“So what do we do now?” Davis said. “If we don’t have any money freed up we can’t legally make compensation increases.”
District officials said Wednesday they would continue to work with the board on “potential next steps.”
Those opposed to school closures have contradicted the said they don’t believe that the district has lost enrollment despite state data showing the numbers declining or that the district was even facing financial challenges. Current board President Mike Hutchinson cited those assertions in yet another last-minute vote in January to reverse the closure of five schools at the end of this academic year.
That decision was also made with less than 24-hours public notice and without the fiscal analysis required by board policy.
Hutchinson has subsequently acknowledged the need to make cuts, specifically to afford raises for staff and teachers. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday on the failure to do so during the meeting Tuesday.
Oakland Unified, with 34,000 students this year, has lost 2,000 students since the start of the pandemic, which could cost the district $30 million in annual state funding. Projections show the loss of students is likely to get worse given the nearly 11% decline of students in transitional kindergarten and kindergarten in the past few years.
The district has been using pandemic recovery funds to pay ongoing costs, but when that money runs out next fiscal year, the board will have to figure out how to pay the bills without it.
Some in the community fear the district is headed for another financial meltdown, requiring state intervention and possibly another bailout loan resulting in a takeover, which happened in 2003.
“Half of our board is living in a fantasy world where money is infinite and enrollment is booming,” said Megan Bacigalupi, founder and executive director of California Parent Power. “In reality enrollment has declined by 2,000 kids since COVID and we have projections on state funding that’s much less promising than originally thought. To give teachers a deserved raise, tough decisions have to be made to right size this shrinking district.”
The superintendent, in the resolution, included a “whereas” clause to remind the elected officials that they needed to remember the past so as not to repeat it.
“The board understands that the District has been in similar situations in the past 20 years and is ready to make these ‘hard tradeoffs’ to ensure the District’s long-term fiscal solvency,” according to the background included in the resolution.
The board, at 12:30 a.m., then voted. Three elected officials decided they were, in fact, not ready.
Reach Jill Tucker: jtucker@sfchronicle.com