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Oakland Unified Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell has proposed to lay off more than 68 staffers to come up with more than half of the $21.5 million that the district says it needs to cut from next year’s budget.
Johnson-Trammell said the layoffs could save up to $12.3 million in the district’s 2020-21 budget. The district would have to come up with $9.7 million in additional cuts to offset rising costs and to give raises to non-teaching staff unions with whom the district is currently negotiating new contracts. The figure also includes new spending for technology and creating a central kitchen.
The three members of the board’s Budget and Finance Committee, which heard the proposal for the first time Monday, raised concerns about across-the-board cuts to schools, with committee members saying they would prefer an “equity-based” formula for calculating cuts so that low-income schools would not suffer the brunt of the reductions. They also asked for a school-by-school analysis of how the cuts would impact each site by dollar amount, as well as by positions to be eliminated.
Some members of the public urged the board to cut the district’s police force, saying the district doesn’t need it and could instead hire a few school security officers to help monitor student safety. Principals said cutting clerical staffers and assistant principals would place a greater burden on principals, which could result in more turnover.
District staff expects to solicit input via online surveys and to present more ideas for cuts to the board Feb. 12.
Luz Cazares, interim CFO and Preston Thomas, chief systems and services officer presented the proposal as a first step to getting reactions from board members. The full seven-member board is expected to review procedures for prioritizing cuts on Wednesday, then give feedback on the developing plan Feb. 12 and vote on it Feb. 26 or March 11.
If the board approves the layoffs, notices for teachers and other staff members with teaching credentials will be sent out by March 15. Classified employees without credentials must get 60 days notice. The proposed layoff of 68 workers does not include cuts at the schools, such as clerical workers and assistant principals.
The plan includes “staff’s current best thinking on potential efficiencies, shifts and reductions to ensure the district is fiscally solvent for 2020-21 and maintains its 3 percent reserve,” according to Johnson-Trammell and Cazares, in a memo to the committee.
The board agreed in December that it needed to cut $21.5 million from its 2020-21 budget to pay for ongoing expenditures, which include rising costs for special education and pension obligations, along with $6 million in part to cover raises for employees of the five unions who are demanding salary increases similar to what teachers received last year. But it did not identify where to make the cuts.
The teachers union negotiated an 11 percent salary increase and a 3 percent bonus to end its seven-day strike. The board later approved raises for the Service Employees Union International, or SEIU, which represents classified positions such as clerical workers, instructional assistants and campus security officers. Board members have publicly stated that they want to give the district’s other workers raises as well.
Total proposed layoffs include positions from the central office: 28 from the academics department, 27 from business and operations, seven from the district’s department that handles personnel issues and six from the superintendent’s office. Although specific positions were not identified in the presentation, they include reductions to communications management, police support, administrative support for the superintendent and board, teacher coaches and peer assistants, recruitment for non-teaching positions and clerical support in operations and talent. In addition, the proposal would reduce the number of managers directing the following: academic innovations; instructional technology; library services; English language learner services; a conflict resolution program called restorative justice; behavioral health services; discipline and attendance; college and career services; supports for families and new employees; and research, data and assessment.
Reductions in the personnel department are expected to increase “the workload of the remaining staff two-fold, impacting frequency of school visits with principals, support with discipline, tenure affirmation and evaluations,” according to the presentation. In business and operations, streamlining of duties and administrative reductions are expected to impact the district’s ability to launch Saturday school for struggling students and the launch of a new central kitchen expected to prepare lunches for all schools districtwide.
Cuts to instructional technology are expected to result in delays for school support, “risk of data errors,” and reduced access to software systems districtwide, according to the presentation. Other cuts would be made to help “streamline” management and redistribute workloads.
The balance of the proposed cuts include $3 million schools receive for discretionary spending, $1.5 million for school clerical support and $1.3 million to reduce the number of assistant principals.
Editor’s Note: As a special project, EdSource is tracking developments this year in the Oakland Unified and West Contra Costa Unified School Districts as a way to illustrate some of the most urgent challenges facing many urban districts in California. West Contra Costa Unified includes Richmond, El Cerrito and several other East Bay communities.
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Comments (9)
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Sarah 4 years ago4 years ago
So, where are the related teachers going to teach? And, is this the time when teachers en masse leave the profession, while the CTC and state DOE employees fill the empty teaching slots … so they realize the appalling state of the working conditions and financial matters?
Tony 4 years ago4 years ago
Terminate the lease at 1000 Broadway and get rid of these consultant positions. Cutting OUSD Police will do absolutely nothing as School Security Officers can’t make arrests and investigate crimes as the don’t have proper training and the tools to do so.
KMM 4 years ago4 years ago
$237,362 per month for their offices at 1000 Broadway. Just look at their 2019-2020 Organization Chart
https://www.ousd.org/cms/lib/CA01001176/Centricity/Domain/4/v4%20OUSD%202019-2020%20Organizational%20Chart.pdf Those are the people who need to be let go.
Jennifer Bestor 4 years ago4 years ago
Blame your elected officials in Sacramento, not OUSD. Alameda County costs are 9.4% higher than the state average. OUSD has to cut corners to the tune of almost $50 million a year compared with equivalently “disadvantaged" districts in 48 counties, including Los Angeles. The original "rational, equitable" LCFF blueprint called for a regional cost adjustment. Instead, OUSD (and every other low-income district in high-cost counties) gets to struggle under the cruel myth of equal=equitable … Read More
Blame your elected officials in Sacramento, not OUSD. Alameda County costs are 9.4% higher than the state average. OUSD has to cut corners to the tune of almost $50 million a year compared with equivalently “disadvantaged” districts in 48 counties, including Los Angeles. The original “rational, equitable” LCFF blueprint called for a regional cost adjustment. Instead, OUSD (and every other low-income district in high-cost counties) gets to struggle under the cruel myth of equal=equitable school funding.
Crueler yet, a supplement would be free to the General Fund in the four most expensive counties (San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin and Santa Clara). Free! Those counties have a large number of basic-aids that would be entitled to nothing — and a mushrooming, almost a billion dollars’ worth of “excess” education-allocated property tax. This property tax has been legislatively, and quietly, handed off to other local governments as “excess” to school and community college needs.
A regional cost supplement, free for low-income districts in four counties, would cost less than $200 million for Alameda and less than $150 million for Contra Costa. Those are the next two highest-cost counties. Then there are Orange, Santa Cruz, San Diego and Ventura, which would total another $270 million between them. (Again, many districts in these counties are basic-aids that would get nothing.)
Blame the cold shoulders — and colder hearts — in Sacramento. The 10 high-cost counties pay over $40 billion a year in income tax. Their residents only get half of this back in state services. So the remaining $20 billion a year pays for other counties’ services — counties whose school districts are equitably funded — while OUSD (and West Contra Costa and Ravenswood and East Side Union High, etc.) collapse under the state’s demands for equal outcomes from unequal inputs. $700 million a year would fix this – less than 1% of the LCFF total – but, instead, Sacramento thinks of new burdens to place on these districts.
tomm 4 years ago4 years ago
The teachers union always says during salary negotiations that they are striking to get better conditions and outcomes for the students. Call me naïve but aren't the proposed cuts going to negatively affect the students? When are the parents (and voters) going to call b.s. on the teachers unions, and when are the teachers going to realize that the teachers unions are lying to them and using them to promote the political power of … Read More
The teachers union always says during salary negotiations that they are striking to get better conditions and outcomes for the students. Call me naïve but aren’t the proposed cuts going to negatively affect the students?
When are the parents (and voters) going to call b.s. on the teachers unions, and when are the teachers going to realize that the teachers unions are lying to them and using them to promote the political power of unions? It’s an awful situation the state has themselves in.
edward r gerber 4 years ago4 years ago
Kudos to the staff for proposing needed cuts. Now the Board must show some courage.
Eli 4 years ago4 years ago
This is disgusting – it looks like they are trying to starve the Oakland students.
Jj 4 years ago4 years ago
HR needs to move out of 1000 Broadway . Thete are plenty of empty schools to set up shop..
Don Macleay 4 years ago4 years ago
It is probably time to dismiss all upper management and run a complete audit.