Sacramento school district eyes cuts to avoid insolvency. What might go?
Sacramento City Unified School District leaders are proposing a laundry list of cuts to prevent a financial crisis that would put the district at risk of county or state intervention.
The district was already facing fiscal woes when a September report showed that the district spent $43 million more than expected last year due to a “flood” of costs that popped up later in the year. Officials estimate that the district could end up $88 million in the red by the 2027-28 school year if they do not come up with a strict plan.
The Sacramento County Office of Education estimated that to be fiscally solvent the district needs to identify $50 million in spending reductions for the 2026-27 school year.
Chief Business Officer Janea Marking proposed a number of reductions Thursday night that would affect all corners of district operations — personnel, curriculum, technology, student activities and programming. The district has already implemented a spending freeze as of Oct. 1 that applies to all nonessential expenditures, including those related to travel, conferences, equipment purchases and new noncritical contracts.
Maintaining opportunities, programs and the educational experience is the district’s top priority when evaluating these cuts, Marking said, in addition to staying compliant with the law and contracts with labor partners.
“Resolving the concerns we have requires significant effort and noticeable changes, however, we continue to work diligently to ensure that our students’ educational experiences and opportunities are not limited by the decisions that need to be made,” she said.
No cuts have been finalized. The board must draft and finalize a plan to meet deadlines set by SCOE.
Possible cuts to come
Goals laid out for the 2025-26 school year include reducing spending on supplies, salary costs, contracts and services. These cuts mean reducing supply budgets in most departments, delaying the purchase of new math curriculum and Chromebooks, freezing hiring for nonclassroom positions and canceling contract agreements that will not disrupt operations.
“All funding that’s not directly impacting our school sites and our students, and all contracts that aren’t directly impacting our school sites and our students, should be terminated.” said Trustee Chinua Rhodes. “That’s my two cents.”
Marking also recommended that the board schedule workshops to plan how to optimize and consolidate facilities, which may develop into a school consolidation plan with attendance boundary changes.
If the first interim budget report certifies a negative fund balance, school officials may take more extensive measures, including seeking a short-term loan, implementing furlough days for nonunion employees and eliminating all supply and contract budgets not entered into by Jan. 31.
To be solvent, the district must consider longer term changes, too. Marking recommended several cuts related to school programming by the 2026-27 school year, such as eliminating the parent participation preschool, funding for sixth grade camping field trips and paying for testing related to GATE, SAT, International Baccalaureate and AP testing.
And again on the chopping block are supply expenditures, including eliminating redundant technology and the general use of CAL-Card accounts. Marking said the district should also seek to reduce district contributions to staff benefits in 2027.
How did Sacramento schools get here?
The somber discussion followed discussions surrounding poor internal controls that have resulted in tens of millions of dollars spent on unauthorized contracts and unbudgeted expenses.
Marking identified a need for the district to change its attitude toward unregulated spending and tighten internal controls that will allow more board control over spending approvals.
“Yes, our financial data is sounding an alarm,” she said. “But it is our district practices that require triage, lack of consistency, lack of continuum, lack of strategies that maximize funding, lack of cost containment strategies, departmental silos, system redundancies and a culture that quilts together compliance, which is neither inexpensive nor optimally effective.”
Multiple board members commented on the district’s reactive, rather than proactive, approach to finances, with Trustee Taylor Kayatta saying that the conversation surrounding the district’s financial emergency is coming “too late.” He said that district staff have deferred the board’s past requests for immediate action on the budget, acting with urgency only as SCOE stepped in.
“We have the beginnings of our plans now, but it’s here too late,” he said. “We should be acting tonight. We shouldn’t have had to wait for SCOE to demand that we do so.”
Adding to the district’s woes, Marking is leaving the district to join Sequoia Union High School District as its assistant superintendent of administrative services beginning Dec. 2, a change that Kayatta categorized as a “devastating loss,” saying that she was “one of the few voices willing to face our financial reality head on.”
The board agreed to meet again next week to finalize a draft fiscal solvency plan to SCOE by its Nov. 15 deadline. The final version is due Dec. 1.
The Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, a state agency that provides guidance to schools in the areas of business and financial management, is conducting a fiscal health risk analysis for SCUSD.
This story was originally published November 7, 2025 at 1:01 PM.
