Fresno Unified School District board members have voted to more than double their pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The board voted 6-1 on Jan. 14 to increase their monthly stipend, in accordance with state law. Trustee Andy Levine cast the lone vote against the increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The backstory: Last year California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1390 into law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Authored by Asm. Jose Luis Solache (D\u2013Lynwood), AB 1390 allows school district boards to increase their compensation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Districts with over 60,000 students, such as Fresno Unified, previously paid their board members up to $1,500 per month, with 5% annual raises, which Fresno Unified implemented in 2019. That took their monthly stipend to $2,111, per a report from McClatchy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AB 1390 allows school districts with over 60,000 students to pay their trustees up to $4,500 per month, which comes to $54,000 annually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trustees for districts that have between 25,000 students and 60,000 students, such as Clovis Unified, are allowed to increase their pay from $750 per month to $3,000 per month under the new law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
State of play: Fresno Unified trustees voted to increase their pay despite facing a budget deficit, which resulted in nearly $49 million in budget cuts for the 2025-2026 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re watching: The increase in pay will take effect at the beginning of February.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The increase in pay may prove to be temporary, depending on the district\u2019s enrollment over the coming years. McClatchy reported that Fresno Unified projects its average daily attendance will drop below 60,000 by the 2027-2028 school year, which would cap the stipends at $3,000 per month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What they\u2019re saying: Levine said that while he supports the spirit behind the law, the district\u2019s deficit takes precedence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that we are in a moment of operating under a budget deficit and having to make some difficult decisions over these next few months, if not longer. And so I am concerned about any action taken on this action while we\u2019re in this current budget moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trustee Keshia Thomas advocated for the increase, telling her colleagues not to take the pay bump if they do not want it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s my thing: If you don\u2019t want it, don\u2019t take it,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cBut we work hard. I work hard. And city councils, supervisors \u2013 you name it \u2013 every board gets a stipend, and I don\u2019t want anybody minimizing my opportunities. So that\u2019s where I stand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno Unified School District board members have voted to more than double their pay.\u00a0 The board voted 6-1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-152382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}