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Budget cuts and reductions will once again be the main focus during Thursday’s Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting as the board will now be discussing how much in reduction the district should implement during the next fiscal year.
According to the Jan. 30 staff report, the board will be returning to the dais after a string of recent meetings where trustees reviewed staff presentations, received public input and weighed out the various impacts these potential reductions would have on PUSD stakeholders.
While there won’t be any immediate decisions about specific reductions on Thursday, the meeting will set the stage for how much money the district will aim to reduce in spending in order to remain fiscally solvent in the coming years.
“At the Jan. 30 Board meeting, the trustees will review and determine the amount of total reductions they plan to implement for the 2025/26 school year,” the staff report states.
Over the last month, the board has held several meetings to discuss the district’s financial struggles and how it plans to address a budget deficit caused by rising expenditures and a lack of revenue.
“To maintain valued programs over the past four school years, the District used its reserves (savings) and one-time funds to pay its expenditures, which resulted in deficit spending,” according to the staff report. “PUSD’s unrestricted reserves are now projected to be below the required 3% at the end of this fiscal year (2024/25).”
That’s why staff have said in order to remain fiscally solvent, the district needs to make reductions to its budget and find new forms of revenue.
According to the staff report, in order to ensure the district’s financial stability during the next fiscal year and also maintain its required 3% reserve in the budget, PUSD will need to make a minimum reduction of about $5.56M in 2025-26 and another $200,000 the next fiscal year.
While staff said these amounts could fluctuate depending on several economic factors, the board could also decide to set a higher reduction goal for “greater district resilience or budgetary options.”
“The reductions will impact important resources of PUSD, including our valued staff and longstanding programs,” according to the staff report. “However, to ensure the fiscal solvency of PUSD, reductions are necessary to keep PUSD under local control and to provide a quality education for our students, support our staff, and serve the families of our community.”
PUSD previously made about $8.1 million in reductions and other budget adjustments for the current 2024-25 fiscal year back in spring 2024. However, that was not enough, which is why the district formed a Budget Advisory Committee in May 2024 to help with this next year’s reduction planning process.
That committee spent six months developing revenue and reduction options — and assessing the different impacts of those reductions — which were presented to the board during the Jan. 16 board meeting.
“The executive cabinet reviewed the data gathered and developed detailed reduction and revenue options,” according to the staff report. “Each option was then analyzed to determine the impact of the reduction on the student experience, as well as on service to staff and community and compliance with regulations and statutory requirements.”
After hearing several students, faculty and community members plead to not go through with certain reductions such as eliminating the elementary music program — a local change.org petition has gained more traction to save that and the A/B Period for 6th and 7th Grades with over 1,000 signatures as of Wednesday — the board returned for two additional meetings to discuss these options on Jan. 23 and Jan. 29.
Following Thursday’s meeting, staff will return to the board Feb. 13 to present an initial resolution for a reduction in force in order to “fulfill the statutory required layoff notification to staff by March 15, 2025.”
At the same time, district staff will also work on developing the 2025-26 budget based on the board’s directions Thursday, additional fiscal information and any other factors that could affect the budget.
The final reduction in force resolution will be brought back to the board for approval in May, final layoff notices will be issued before May 15 and the new 2025-26 budget will be finalized and brought to the board in June.
The board’s open session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 30).
In other business:
Under the consent calendar, which are items considered routine in nature and are typically approved by a single vote, the board will be voting on approving a resolution that doubles down on the district’s commitment to provide all children with equal access to education, regardless of immigration status.
The resolution comes more than a week after increased concerns stemming from President Donald Trump’s commitments to scale up the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
“Some of our students and their families have expressed concerns about the safety and well-being of children who are immigrants or who have family members who are immigrants,” according to the staff report. “This resolution reaffirms Pleasanton Unified School District’s commitment to providing the safe and respectful learning environment that we believe all children have a right to experience.”
* During the regular portion of the meeting, the board will be voting on approving a resolution recognizing Black and African American History Month and celebrating the contributions of the African American families of Pleasanton.
* The board will be looking to approve the purchase of synthetic track material for the Pleasanton Middle School Athletic Complex Project.
Using $282,909 from Measure I funds — a $395 million general obligation bond voters passed in 2022 — the district will seek to purchase the new material in order to provide PMS with a “high-quality synthetic track surfacing system that meets the needs of students, athletes, and the broader school community while ensuring long-term durability and value for the district.”
* As part of the consent calendar, the board will also be looking to approve three resolutions that will conclude the design-build process for the Foothill High School Campus Renovation and Amador Valley High School Campus Renovation projects as well as for the Educational Options Center project.
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