Oakland Unified School District has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by the city and pay nearly $1 million for the costs of the 2022 school board election.
The legal dispute dates back to 2024, when Barbara Parker, in her then role as city attorney, filed a lawsuit against OUSD after the district refused to pay for the 2020, 2022, and 2023 school board elections. The city had historically invoiced OUSD for the costs of administering board elections but stopped sending invoices after 2008, according to the lawsuit. After discovering the oversight, the city sent invoices in October 2023 in an attempt to recoup $1.5 million in costs for the 2020 and 2022 school board elections.
State education law requires school districts to pay for the costs of their elections, but OUSD officials responded to the invoices by arguing that the district was facing a deficit and was not in a place to cover the payments, leading the city to file suit in 2024. By then, the city’s suit also sought to recoup the costs of the November 2023 special election — nearly $600,000 — which it had been billed for by Alameda County.
In a resolution approved last Tuesday, the city council directed the city attorney to charge OUSD $860,000 for the 2022 election. The city then requested that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters bill the district for the costs of the 2023 election.
“We anticipate that the 2020 election costs will be resolved as part of the settlement of this matter upon execution of a settlement agreement between the parties,” the city attorney’s office said in a statement, resolving the city’s $1.5 million claim.
In 2023, OUSD held a special election to fill the vacancy left when school board director Mike Hutchinson was elected to represent District 4, a chain of events set off when Oakland’s citizen-led redistricting commission redrew boundaries that moved Hutchinson’s address from District 5 to District 4 in the middle of his term. Hutchinson filed a lawsuit before being sworn in, after a vote-counting mishap led the registrar’s office to erroneously declare a different candidate the winner.
The school board could have chosen to fill Hutchinson’s vacancy through an appointment process, as it did in 2022 when Shanthi Gonzales stepped down, which would have been far cheaper. But a majority of board directors could not come to an agreement about which path to take, requiring county superintendent Alysse Castro to call for a special election.
OUSD is not in a better financial position than it was two years ago.
Last month, the school board voted to eliminate more than 400 positions for the 2026-2027 school year in an effort to close a $100 million deficit. The district also narrowly averted a teachers strike by offering a tentative deal that includes 11% to 13% raises for teachers — a deal that now awaits board approval. The district will have to find tens of millions more dollars to pay for those raises.
The city council approved the settlement in a closed session last October. During last week’s meeting, the settlement was approved as part of a batch of consent items. City councilmembers Carroll Fife, Ken Houston, Zac Unger, Charlene Wang, and Kevin Jenkins voted to approve the consent calendar, while Rowena Brown, Noel Gallo, and Janani Ramachandran were absent.
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