Fiscal Stablization

The Superintendent has led an effort to create a Fiscal Stabilization Plan to ensure that the District has the means to reverse the trend of a growing operating deficit. In line with time-proven best-practices of strategic budgeting where departments must prioritize their priorities according to programs and services that best serve our students, a Superintendent's Budget Advisory Committee (SBAC) was formed to enlist a diverse set of educational partners to advise the District on priorities. 

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As such, from September to October 2024, the SBAC met over the course of six meetings to hear from Central Office department heads on budget scenarios which spanned from no cuts in departmental programs and services to 40% cuts, staggered at 10% intervals. Staff were tasked with identifying their core services (the ones most necessary to serve the most students), redesign their functions to operate most efficiently, and what the impact would be to school sites and other centralized services.

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Committee members were tasked with understanding the budget packages to the degree by which they could assign numerical rankings to each budget package. The best analogy to how the process works is defined in the Board Presentation of the SBAC which can be downloaded here (look at slides 9-14).

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That process has been completed and now the Superintendent's Leadership Team (SLT) is evaluating the input from the SBAC in service of recommending necessary and identified reductions in the Fiscal Stabilization Plan.

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To understand the process here are some critical resources to review:​

• Approved Fiscal Stabilization Plan (as approved by the Board of Education on December 12

• Process and outcomes from the SBAC​

• The final SBAC Package rankings from the work of the SBAC

• The 2024-2025 Budget "1st Interim" report (with unaudited actuals given visibility to how the District is tracking in terms of adhering to the budget)

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Coming up on Thursday, January 16 at 5pm, the Board of Education will convene a special meeting to hear from District Administration their recommendations for spending reductions, informed by the SBAC and internal department planning. This will be our time for us to ask clarifying questions and give feedback in advance of a vote to approve the reductions later in the month.