Sacramento City school board members were up late Thursday night passing a budget plan for next year, but the district still has major financial hurdles ahead of it.
The good news? The new fiscal plan avoids a state takeover for now. The bad news? The district cut nearly 400 teachers and school positions, and teachers and administrators are still deadlocked over labor negotiations.
“This budget is tolerable for now, but we really need to move forward so that we’re not having this fight every year, and we can start investing in the kids,” said Tara Thronson, founder of the group Parents United to Restore our Schools.
The school district still faces a state takeover in a couple of years if it doesn’t realize more long-term structural savings.
Thursday’s meeting ran late as parents pleaded that teachers and the district do anything they can to fix the district’s long term budget deficit.
“Everywhere where we have reduced costs or made cuts has been on the employee side of the equation, not on the student side,” said district spokesperson Alex Barrios. “And that has been 100% intentional. We want to say loud and clear to the community, our programs are staying in place.”
The district faces many more months of financial problem-solving. The county is expected to reject the city schools funding plan.
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