Key takeaways: What Sac City board knew when it approved costly 2025 teacher contract

Sacramento City Unified School District’s former Chief Business Officer Janea Marking alleges in documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee that the board of trustees knowingly approved an “unaffordable” teachers union contract despite repeated warnings about its fiscal consequences.

Thanks to a deluge in unbudgeted spending and systemic poor fiscal practices, the district is facing a projected deficit of about $390 million by 2027-28 and could run out of cash in July.

FULL STORY: Ex-Sac City official alleges board favored teachers’ contract over fiscal solvency

Key takeaways

• Marking wrote in a March 10 email to Sacramento County Office of Education officials that the board was warned multiple times about the financial consequences of its decisions and that projections showed a $122 million deficit by the end of 2027-28.

• Marking alleges the board adopted a strategy to “flood the zone” — deliberately creating chaos to redirect accountability away from leadership.

• The teachers’ contract is far from the sole driver of the crisis. Unrestricted fund special education spending has grown from about $73 million in 2019 to a projected $170 million this year, and enrollment has declined more than 10% in the past decade.

• The district has already issued 1,000 pink slips, closed preschool programs and is slated to run out of cash in July. The board met Thursday to discuss possible school consolidations.

Reaction to Marking’s email

• The board’s executive committee called the email “an improper public airing of a skewed perspective” and said it is looking into whether any laws were violated, but declined to comment on confidential closed session discussions.

• Teacher’s union president Nikki Milevsky called Marking’s email “a misleading attempt to cover up fiscal mismanagement and rewrite history.”