{"id":467555,"date":"2026-09-18T04:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467555\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T04:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:44:13","slug":"lukewarm-news-on-oakland-unifieds-budget-with-more-cuts-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/467555\/","title":{"rendered":"Lukewarm news on Oakland Unified’s budget with more cuts ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alameda County’s Office of Education conditionally approved<\/a> Oakland Unified School District\u2019s 2026-27 budget on Sept. 15, but the district is not in the clear yet.<\/p>\n

Budget approval is an important step for the district to maintain control over its finances and operations. For two decades OUSD was in receivership and its budget was controlled by the state and county. It won back control in 2025.<\/p>\n

Oakland\u2019s budget was only conditionally approved on Tuesday, which means the county identified some changes it needs the district to make \u2014 like cutting an additional $30 million.<\/p>\n

When the OUSD passed its budget in June, the board decided to delay this final cut until the fall. Board member Mike Hutchinson told KALW he didn\u2019t think that was a good idea. He was the sole \u201cno\u201d on the budget vote. \u201c\u200aI can’t explain why anyone would go along with this,\u201d he said in a phone call.<\/p>\n

Board President Jennifer Brouhard said the restructuring work the board is doing \u2014 including making better use of restricted funding \u2014 has put the district in a better position than it has been in the past.<\/p>\n

County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro acknowledged OUSD\u2019s improvements in her letter<\/a>, writing that the district\u2019s budget was \u201cmaterially stronger\u201d than those it filed in the past.<\/p>\n

OUSD reached an agreement with the teachers union in February. The deal added $32 million dollars to this year\u2019s budget \u2014 just about the amount the board now needs to cut from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can’t afford it according to the numbers,\u201d Hutchinson said.<\/p>\n

But Brouhard sees the contract as an investment that will lead to better long-term stability. \u201c\u200aIf we really want to keep our educators in Oakland, we had to do something significant. And we did,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Oakland Unified Superintendent Dr. Denise Saddler celebrated<\/a> the conditional approval in a newsletter on Sept. 16, calling it \u201cpositive news.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district only has a few weeks to determine where the $30 million in cuts will come from. It must take action by October 8. The county then has a month to approve the budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alameda County’s Office of Education conditionally approved Oakland Unified School District\u2019s 2026-27 budget on Sept. 15, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-467555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467555","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=467555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}