Sacramento City Unified school budget rejected again. Immediate cuts recommended
The Sacramento City Unified School District announced on Friday that their budget was rejected by county school officials again.
In a letter to the district, Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools David Gordon said that while the district will meet its minimum reserve requirements in the next two years, it will fall short by $27 million in the 2021-2022 budget year.
The district will be in a negative fund balance of $14.8 million by June 30, 2022, according to the county’s letter to the district.
While the county noted that the district made considerable progress towards fixing its budget crisis, the cuts are “not enough” to remove the structural deficit, and that the district and its bargaining units — namely the Sacramento City Teachers Association — must make more progress.
“We again encourage the district and its bargaining units to immediately accelerate the negotiations process so that all possible savings to the budget can be realized,” Gordon stated in his letter to the district.
Gordon said that the “openly hostile” relationship between the teachers union and the district prevented the district from making progress.
In recent months, the district and the union were at odds on how to lower the amount spent on health insurance coverage. The teachers union wants to divert the money to the classrooms, and the district says putting health insurance negotiations on the table is one of the remaining ways to save money.
“The latest rejected SCUSD budget simply points to the sustained fiscal mismanagement that plagues the District,” read a statement from the teachers union. “Revenues into the district are at an all-time high, but still the district continues to flounder. Curbing bureaucratic bloat doesn’t CONTINUE READING: Sacramento City Unified school budget rejected. More cuts needed | The Sacramento Bee
