Sacramento teacher union’s deal with district would extend contract. What that means for the coming years
Special Projects/Investigations Manager
The Sacramento City Teachers Association says it has finalized an agreement with the Sacramento City Unified School District to unlock nearly $100 million in funds to address the district’s financial crisis.
Now we’re getting a better idea of how the union’s deal could impact the district in the coming months and years.
Earlier this week, the SCTA announced it had unlocked the funds, which include $67 million from a special retiree health fund, $22 million from Medi-Cal reimbursements and $6 million from unfilled vacancies.
The district has been trying to avoid state receivership, in which the state takes over local control of cuts.
The Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team has been warning the district its financial crisis is so severe it may not be able to make payroll starting in February 2027.
On Wednesday, FCMAT CEO Mike Fine said that due to this new deal, that date could be moved back to March 2027.
He said FCMAT is still analyzing the deal, but they believe some of the money had already been accounted for in their latest projections, meaning the new cash for their updated projections would actually be about $41 million.
The agreement also extends the SCTA contract through June 30, 2030, and includes a provision that until then, no other union can receive a raise unless SCTA receives the same raise.
The ‘Me-Too’ provision
According to documents reviewed by KCRA 3 Investigates, the so- called “Me-Too” provision states in part, “If, the District enters into any collectively bargained agreement with any other labor organization that represents SCUSD employees … that includes any improvement to SCUSD employee wages and/or benefits, the District shall automatically also apply to the same improvement in wages and/or benefits to the collective bargaining agreement with SCTA…”
In an interview on Tuesday, Fine said, “This arrangement also has the contract being locked up until 2030, which means that there would be no further negotiations. So if they do go into state receivership because of a lack of cash and we need to sit down and negotiate concessions, the contract is closed.”
KCRA 3 Investigates also asked SCTA President Nikki Davis Milevsky about the contract extension on Tuesday.
She said, “Well, it means that the district is going to work with us to find savings in ways that don’t impact our class sizes, our services to kids, our mental health services, our reading intervention and things like that. We’re going to find other sources of savings.”
Davis Milevsky went on to say the district’s past chief business officer and the fiscal adviser have done a “terrible job” in accounting for the district’s money.
“We believe we have some budget challenges, and we don’t believe they’re at the scale that the past CBO and the County Office of Education has said it will be,” Davis Milevsky said.
We asked whether she was concerned about missing the deadline to request receivership in August so that money would be available in February.
She replied, “We’ve done a lot of work in conjunction with our school board and our district leadership to make sure that our district is in good shape, if we need to make that request that we are all trying to avoid having happen. We are not concerned. We’ve done a lot of background work.”
The school board has been firmly against state receivership, citing concerns about losing local control of cuts. An emergency board meeting is scheduled for Thursday to discuss the situation further.
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