\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSacramento City Unified School District leaders expressed optimism Friday about making progress toward resolving its financial crisis despite facing a larger budget deficit than previously believed. \u201cI am feeling incredibly hopeful today,\u201d said Tara Jeane, president of the Board of Education, on Friday. \u201cOur cash is in a better situation than we thought it was and we are tentatively saying that we will not be in need of a loan this school year.\u201dThe district believes it can avoid fiscal insolvency and a state takeover, for now. \u201cLast night’s board meeting turned a corner,\u201d Jeane said Friday. \u201cWe moved from identify the problem and feeling almost hopeless and sucked into that to going, no, this is what the data is really saying and here’s our movement towards a solution.\u201dThe district is in financial trouble. That trouble is serious enough that the district could be deemed fiscally insolvent, which would allow the district to receive a loan from the state but would also require an outside trustee to replace the superintendent and board. While it appears a state takeover has been avoided for now, significant cuts need to be made. A district spokesperson said a \u201chistory of poor budgeting practices\u201d and inaccurate representations of the district\u2019s finances contributed to the financial mess.New figures presented to the board on Thursday by Interim Chief Business Officer Lisa Grant-Dawson indicate the district should end the 2025-2026 school year with about $3 million, even as the larger deficit looms. The overarching goal for the district is to avoid running out of cash.The new figures presented, however, also showed the budget deficit is $113 million, despite a December report that showed the deficit at $51.6 million.\u201cWe got a lot of data that we’re now realizing wasn’t good data,\u201d Jeane said of the discrepancy. \u201cWe made decisions based on that not good data and that is part of what has led us here.\u201dGrant-Dawson has identified roughly $44 million in savings, which includes laying off roughly 68 administrative positions, reducing non-school department budgets by 20%, freezing non-custodial supply purchases and other measures. That still leaves some $70 million in cuts to be identified to get the district out of the deficit. \u201cWe’re really committed to both the short-term that we need to do to stay out of fiscal insolvency, but more importantly, the long term,\u201d Jeane said. \u201cOur community keeps getting hit with this and that’s not fair or right. Our system has to change.\u201dFor district families feeling overwhelmed or confused about the district\u2019s financial situation, SCUSD Chief Communications Officer Brian Heap shared the message below on Friday afternoon:”I think what I want parents to know tonight is where we are right now is the truest picture that we have been able to give you since this crisis began. I feel really confident in saying that,\u201d he said. \u201cI also feel confident in saying that we do have a plan in place to make sure we have enough cash to get through the 25\/26 school year. If we can do that, we can really put together an actionable plan to attack this deficit in the long term.”Another update on the district’s financial plan is scheduled for Feb. 18. The board has called for increased transparency as it attempts to resolve its financial state and overhaul a culture of overspending.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tSACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Sacramento City Unified School District leaders expressed optimism Friday about making progress toward resolving its financial crisis despite facing a larger budget deficit than previously believed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am feeling incredibly hopeful today,\u201d said Tara Jeane, president of the Board of Education, on Friday. \u201cOur cash is in a better situation than we thought it was and we are tentatively saying that we will not be in need of a loan this school year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The district believes it can avoid fiscal insolvency and a state takeover, for now. <\/p>\n
\u201cLast night’s board meeting turned a corner,\u201d Jeane said Friday. \u201cWe moved from identify the problem and feeling almost hopeless and sucked into that to going, no, this is what the data is really saying and here’s our movement towards a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
The district is in financial trouble. That trouble is serious enough that the district could be deemed fiscally insolvent, which would allow the district to receive a loan from the state but would also require an outside trustee to replace the superintendent and board. <\/p>\n
While it appears a state takeover has been avoided for now, significant cuts need to be made. A district spokesperson said a \u201chistory of poor budgeting practices\u201d and inaccurate representations of the district\u2019s finances contributed to the financial mess.<\/p>\n
New figures presented to the board on Thursday by Interim Chief Business Officer Lisa Grant-Dawson indicate the district should end the 2025-2026 school year with about $3 million, even as the larger deficit looms. The overarching goal for the district is to avoid running out of cash.<\/p>\n
The new figures presented, however, also showed the budget deficit is $113 million, despite a December report<\/a> that showed the deficit at $51.6 million.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got a lot of data that we’re now realizing wasn’t good data,\u201d Jeane said of the discrepancy. \u201cWe made decisions based on that not good data and that is part of what has led us here.\u201d<\/p>\n Grant-Dawson has identified roughly $44 million in savings<\/a>, which includes laying off roughly 68 administrative positions, reducing non-school department budgets by 20%, freezing non-custodial supply purchases and other measures. That still leaves some $70 million in cuts to be identified to get the district out of the deficit. <\/p>\n \u201cWe’re really committed to both the short-term that we need to do to stay out of fiscal insolvency, but more importantly, the long term,\u201d Jeane said. \u201cOur community keeps getting hit with this and that’s not fair or right. Our system has to change.\u201d<\/p>\n For district families feeling overwhelmed or confused about the district\u2019s financial situation, SCUSD Chief Communications Officer Brian Heap shared the message below on Friday afternoon:<\/p>\n “I think what I want parents to know tonight is where we are right now is the truest picture that we have been able to give you since this crisis began. I feel really confident in saying that,\u201d he said. \u201cI also feel confident in saying that we do have a plan in place to make sure we have enough cash to get through the 25\/26 school year. If we can do that, we can really put together an actionable plan to attack this deficit in the long term.”<\/p>\n Another update on the district’s financial plan is scheduled for Feb. 18. The board has called for increased transparency as it attempts to resolve its financial state and overhaul a culture of overspending.<\/p>\n See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sacramento City Unified School District leaders expressed optimism Friday about making progress toward resolving its financial crisis despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1581,16476,16950,3291,24906,4579,9263,80656,80655,80654,121,13462,79031,123,122,37318,37405,55226,225,55229,80652,80653],"class_list":["post-167748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-board","tag-budget-deficit","tag-cash","tag-datum","tag-deficit","tag-district","tag-loan","tag-long-term","tag-new-figure","tag-optimism-friday","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-city-unified","tag-sacramento-city-unified-leader","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-school-district","tag-school-year","tag-significant-cut","tag-state","tag-state-takeover","tag-superintendent-resigns","tag-tara-jeane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167748","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=167748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}