![\"Sacramento](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SAC_0343_260502_JV_SCUSD.JPG\" "\\"Sacramento")
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Sacramento City Unified Interim financial officer Lisa Grant-Dawson provides a fiscal solvency plan update during a board meeting on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, at the Serna Center in Sacramento.<\/p>\n
JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS<\/p>\n
jvillegas@sacbee.com<\/p>\n
Now that Sacramento County\u2019s fiscal adviser has canceled the Sacramento City Unified School District board\u2019s contract with a consulting firm, the district faces its budget crisis with fewer options and a ticking clock. The district is projected to run out of cash in September, which would trigger a state takeover.<\/p>\n
We wrote a story detailing what this means and the reactions to it.<\/p>\n
FULL STORY: How a contract cancellation reveals strain between SCUSD board, staff and watchdogs<\/a><\/p>\n Here are key takeaways:<\/p>\n \u2022 The board voted 7-0 last month to spend up to $400,000 on budget advisory services from HYA Corporation. The next day, county-assigned fiscal adviser Luz Cazares killed the deal, calling it inconsistent with the district\u2019s financial recovery.<\/p>\n \u2022 This is the first time the board has been overruled during its fight to stay solvent and retain local control. Board President Tara Jeane said she was \u201cincredibly disappointed, but not surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 The district\u2019s deficit has grown to $170 million since the first interim budget update. Interim Chief Business Officer Lisa Grant-Dawson said a $100 million deficit had been \u201cchasing\u201d the district for years.<\/p>\n \u2022 Trustee Taylor Kayatta said that Cazares\u2019 decision to block the contract was the result of \u201cbad blood between highly paid professionals and their fights at Oakland Unified\u201d rather than the needs of SCUSD. Cazares and Grant-Dawson worked together to get the Bay Area-district out of insolvency, after which HYA Corporation took over fiscal responsibility. The firm\u2019s performance has received mix reception from Oakland leaders.<\/p>\n This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence based on our own originally reported, written and published content. Before publishing, journalists reviewed this content in compliance with McClatchy Media\u2019s AI policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sacramento City Unified Interim financial officer Lisa Grant-Dawson provides a fiscal solvency plan update during a board meeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-252883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252883","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=252883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}