California Budget Crisis

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Tracy Unified School District

The Future Belongs to the Educated

California Budget Crisis

Estimates for California's budget shortfall range from $16 billion to $18 billion. Since K-12 education accounts for nearly half of California’s spending each year, there is no way schools in California will avoid serious cuts in programs and services. Our District, like every other in California, will be making cuts. TUSD is expecting to cut about $7.2 million from its budget for next school year. This works out to about $440 in reductions per student.

Logic would tell you that because school districts depend so heavily on state funding, the state budget should be approved before school districts are required to approve their budgets. It rarely works that way. We know the political debate related to the 2008-09 state budget will go on for months and we are not expecting a state budget to be approved until fall, which will be several months after the new fiscal year has begun. Regardless, our District still will be required by law to adopt a budget for the 2008-09 school year by June 30. We are also required to show a fiscally solvent budget for the following two years.

TUSD is being as proactive as it can in preparing for cuts of this magnitude. The goal of the Board and administration has been to create operational and fiscal flexibility so the District is prepared to react to the state budget, and meet our statutory deadline for adopting a balanced budget for next school year.

In January, we developed a planning process for budget cuts that included formation of a District Budget Advisory Committee. This large committee includes staff, Board and community representatives that have been meeting since February.

The Budget Advisory Committee has reviewed state and district budget processes, reviewed the District’s initial list of potential budget reductions, as well as expanded lists that have been developed along the way. As a final step the Committee will prioritize the list of possible budget cuts. The prioritized list will be included in a report to the Board.

The District’s Management Team, teacher’s union and classified employees union also provided input on the list of possible budget cuts throughout the process.

The proposed list of budget reductions below includes ideas that were collected through the District Budget Advisory Committee, the Management Team, and the employee unions.

To be included in the list of possible budget reductions an item needed to meet a specific set of criteria:

Must result in cost savings
Not an illegal cut
Does not significantly impact the primary mission of the school district (student achievement, health and safety)
District can act unilaterally on the reduction and not have to renegotiate existing contracts.

Each of the four groups will prioritize the budget reduction list and submit it to the Board for review, along with comments collected from the public budget meetings held in March. The Board of Education will act during a special meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 7 p.m. at Freiler School.

In closing, while it is prudent for the District to make cuts to protect its fiscal solvency, the decisions are very difficult and are painful for our District family. All of these reductions, if implemented, will impact the overall effectiveness of TUSD.

These are very challenging times for our District and our goal is to make the best possible decisions to protect the students we serve, and the long-term fiscal health and success of TUSD.

2008-09 District Budget Reductions Report