Sac City school board votes to reverse some cuts as budget situation looks up
After outcry from hundreds of Sacramento City Unified School District’s nonteaching staff, the board opted Thursday to reverse several decisions that would have affected their pay.
The public received the news last night that the struggling school district was finally projecting to be fiscally solvent at the end of the school year, the first good news about the district’s budget since its large deficit was discovered.
At a special board meeting one week before, a frustrated board voted to make a number of drastic moves to get the ball rolling on a fiscal solvency plan that had not yet been meaningfully implemented.
Trustee Taylor Kayatta moved on Jan. 29 to either immediately lay off or transfer into the classroom 70 administrators identified for reduction earlier in the school year, and to furlough nonunion staff for 12 days, among other actions.
Those two mandates brought ire from nonteaching staff from across the district. In a heated public comment session, the board heard an earful from administrators, after-school staff and nutritional service employees, who all pleaded with trustees to reverse the decision they felt would not only cause interruptions to student services, but also fail to achieve the general fund savings the district was seeking.
Many of the workers set to be furloughed hold roles that are a part of grant- or federally-funded programs, such as food staff and after-school program workers.
“Our former (chief business officer) recommended using a scalpel, not a hammer,” Eric Dela Cruz, nutritional services area manager, said. “Instead, you’re choosing to dismantle a federally-funded program that serves our most vulnerable students — creating hostility, poor morale and disruptive services, all with no fiscal benefit whatsoever.”
Some argued that the actions affecting administrators represented by a union were illegal. Members of the United Professional Educators union said that moving administrators to classroom positions violated the terms of their bargaining agreement and state labor code.
Garrett Kirkland, president of UPE and principal of Hiram Johnson High School, has been especially outspoken about his disappointment in leadership’s cuts.
“The board’s actions through this fiscal plan will remove administrators from leadership and support roles that schools and departments rely on, while placing them into instructional roles without adequate planning or consideration for the impacts on core systems, staff and, most importantly, students,” he said.
Nonteaching staff members said they were unfairly bearing the fallout of the financial crisis as teachers enjoyed a new contract that resulted in significant raises and a boost in staffing.
The public outcry, bolstered by the new revelations about the fiscal health of the district, appeared to be effective: Trustees agreed to roll back those decisions, citing outsized harm to staff and students when it did not appear financially necessary to implement these measures.
Kayatta said that he pushed for the furlough days and admin transfers in a time when urgency and blunt actions seemed necessary to avoid state takeover. But with new information and an improved fiscal outlook, the district could adopt a more measured approach.
“We are now finding a way to get back to the scalpel, and so that means the hammer needs to go away,” he said.
At the same meeting, the board announced former superintendent Lisa Allen’s departure and named former human relations chief Cancy McArn as interim leader.
This story was originally published February 6, 2026 at 3:52 PM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story said the school board approved hiring a new administrator required by the district’s settlement with the California Attorney General’s office. The board discussed the position but did not approve it. The story and a photo caption also misidentified the school at which Garrett Kirkland serves as principal. It is Hiram Johnson High School.
