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The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved the first round of budget reductions totaling just over $7.5 million last week.
The trustees also informally identified over $3.5 million in additional reductions during the Nov. 13 meeting. They are set to vote on the remaining items during a special meeting this week, despite continued pushback from the community about the district’s target savings goal.
“Targets may vary,” Superintendent Maurice Ghysels said during the Nov. 13 board meeting. “These are estimates. There’s a lot of variables here due to factors such as state funding, cost of living adjustments, enrollment … the board needs to identify enough reductions to cover the current known factors and variances as identified.”
The district’s financial challenges include a structural deficit attributed to declining enrollment, expiration of one-time state funds, low state funding and rising costs for compensation, insurance, health care and special education services.
Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro recently attended a board meeting where she emphasized the fact that the county conditionally approved the district’s 2025-26 budget dependent on PUSD making these ongoing expenditure reductions and finding ways to increase revenues in order to net a minimum savings of $8,153,721 in 2026–27 and $737,131 in 2027–28, for a two-year total of about $9 million.
She said failing to do so could lead to state intervention and the subsequent loss of local control.
A portion of the approved list of cuts are as follows: reducing department and site budgets for materials and supplies by 5%; reducing special education consulting services by hiring in-house staff, reducing department travel and conference budgets by 10%; and reducing work years by four days for Ghysels and by three days for district office management — including the executive cabinet. Site management will also have their work years reduced by three days.
Several district administrator positions in human resources, adult education and other management roles will also be reclassified in order to save money.
Other reductions include cutting the number of elementary vice principals; reducing hours for the high school coordinators of operation; phasing out the non-reimbursable expense stipend for site management; reducing the number of work days and positions for district and site support services; and other reductions for operational services and technology and graphics.
The $7.5 million in initial reductions will also decrease the number of integration specialists; combine certain fourth and fifth grade classes due to low class sizes in certain schools; phase out the Advancement Via Individual Determination program; and reduce the district’s budget for several professional development programs.
Reductions in professional development include phasing out the Certificated Staff Development Reform and Classified Professional Growth programs, and reducing professional development days for both certificated and classified staff by one day — all of these are contingent on being agreed upon by the respective teachers and classified staff unions.
Lastly, the board approved other reduction strategies including freezing educational degree stipends for district office and site management; utilizing one-time funds to pay the final installment of the Early Retirement Incentive (PARS); and phasing out the certificated retirement award and classified early retirement incentive.
Following the unanimous approval of all these cuts, the board continued its budget discussions last week with PUSD assistant superintendent of business service Ahmad Sheikholeslami going over projections that suggest the district would have to identify an additional $1.5 million in savings during the 2027-28 fiscal year, which means the board could be looking at the need to make at least $12.7 million in cuts based on further declining enrollment, cost-of-living adjustments being low and other contingencies and factors.
Ghysels said things could change and, based on new data, reductions could be scaled back and even rescinded early next year but Ghysles also said the board should focus on not being in the same position next year, which meant identifying more than the minimum target goal of reductions.
Association of Pleasanton Teachers President Evan Branning stressed to the board last week that the district has been inflating the true minimum target of reductions the board needs to make and downplaying how cuts to specialist positions would impact the community.
“This degree of giving you partial information leads me to question any further decisions at this point,” Branning said. “As you look at cuts above the $8.1 million mark, all of those cuts are simply to look at what your level of tolerance is: would you rather make cuts to avoid the potential for future pain or would you want to make cuts that hurt our students’ chance at an education right now.”
Despite Branning’s pleas to keep the cuts at a minimum, the board — following three hours of discussing the overall list of reduction items — identified an additional $3,526,975 in reductions, bringing the combined total to $11,036,702.
Some of those reductions included reorganizing the Career Pathways and Adult Learning Department by reclassifying a director position to an assistant director; reducing hours for the technology services director; reducing hours for night custodians at elementary schools and shifting to a new cleaning schedule; and a slighter reduction in hours for night custodians at each middle school.
The board is set to approve these additional cuts and reductions during a special board meeting on Thursday (Nov. 20). The board will also wrap up its budget discussions by talking about the potential phasing out or reduction of the elementary school Reading Intervention Support Specialist role.
This week’s special board meeting is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Thursday. Read the full agenda here.
