03/28/2024

K-12: ‘Tidal wave of expenses’ in looming California school budget crisis

SAN JOSE — Faced with significant salary hikes and ballooning health benefit and pensions, school districts across the state scrambled to balance their budgets at the end of the fiscal year.

And the outlook for the coming years is even worse.

Current and looming money problems beset school districts small and large, from tiny San Bruno Park — deemed by the state to be at risk of insolvency — to the 41-school San Jose Unified, which expects to cut 150 jobs before school reopens in August.

“It’s like a tidal wave of expenses coming our way,” said San Jose Unified trustee Kimberly Meek.

Across the state, districts struggled to adopt balanced budgets by June 30 for the next three years, as required by law.

“Two-thirds of districts I look at have problems in the third year with deficit spending,” said Ron Bennett, CEO of School Services of California, which advises 850 of the state’s roughly 1,000 districts. About one-third see problems in the second year, and a handful are making big cuts in the first year, 2017-’18, he said.

Among them is Cupertino Union, which faces a $5.6 million deficit next year — even after laying off staff and making $2.6 million in cuts this spring, CBO and co-interim Superintendent Chris Jew said.

It just may be that in 10 years, schools will look back on 2017 as the last good year in recent times for public education.

“We will look back on what has been sacrificed, and what we had to let go,” said Cupertino district spokesman Jeff Bowman.

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