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Agenda Item
R.-1 24-2598D Adoption by the Board of Education of Resolution No. 2425-0129A - 2025-2026 Budget Balancing Solutions, addressing District's $95 Million Deficit (Third of Three Readings).
The budget crisis is a contrivance. Hundreds of million dollars in reserves, a bloated and divorced-from-reality books and supplies budget, rampant overspending on external contracts (nothing new here, see the 2019 Alameda County Grand Jury report), and yet here we are, with District leaders speaking out of both sides of their mouth - paying lip service to the importance of compensation increases to attract and retain labor while also pinning the need for this scattershot package of budget cuts squarely on the backs of OUSD teachers and staff. While we all share the goal of getting out from under the thumb of FCMAT and their appointees at the ACOE (and here I am in full agreement with VP Hutchinson: the county are *not* our "friends", and it was deeply alarming to hear the superintendent claim otherwise), opening the door to cuts that will decimate student services and staff working conditions across the district should not and cannot be the ticket out of receivership.
I appreciate that, faced with a huge budget deficit, it is easier and more acceptable to cut expenses across the board or eliminate an entire job position. I hope you will be more forward thinking and thoughtful. As a volunteer with the League of Women Voters of Oakland, I've experienced how effective a non-teaching position, for instance, can be in creating meaningful learning and growth opportunities for students - including those that are unfounded state mandates like Voter Education weeks. During the election season this fall, Ms. Jah-yee Woo was exceptionally effective in creating options for hundreds of students at Oakland Tech to participate in discussion of how voting matters and how to be an informed voter as well as pre-registering to vote. She, in effect, expanded the capabilities of already over-loaded teachers and perhaps reduced turnover. I hope you will be bold enough to find a balanced budget that serves students' best interests and is sustainable.
The budget crisis is a contrivance. Hundreds of million dollars in reserves, a bloated and divorced-from-reality books and supplies budget, rampant overspending on external contracts (nothing new here, see the 2019 Alameda County Grand Jury report), and yet here we are, with District leaders speaking out of both sides of their mouth - paying lip service to the importance of compensation increases to attract and retain labor while also pinning the need for this scattershot package of budget cuts squarely on the backs of OUSD teachers and staff. While we all share the goal of getting out from under the thumb of FCMAT and their appointees at the ACOE (and here I am in full agreement with VP Hutchinson: the county are *not* our "friends", and it was deeply alarming to hear the superintendent claim otherwise), opening the door to cuts that will decimate student services and staff working conditions across the district should not and cannot be the ticket out of receivership.
I appreciate that, faced with a huge budget deficit, it is easier and more acceptable to cut expenses across the board or eliminate an entire job position. I hope you will be more forward thinking and thoughtful. As a volunteer with the League of Women Voters of Oakland, I've experienced how effective a non-teaching position, for instance, can be in creating meaningful learning and growth opportunities for students - including those that are unfounded state mandates like Voter Education weeks. During the election season this fall, Ms. Jah-yee Woo was exceptionally effective in creating options for hundreds of students at Oakland Tech to participate in discussion of how voting matters and how to be an informed voter as well as pre-registering to vote. She, in effect, expanded the capabilities of already over-loaded teachers and perhaps reduced turnover. I hope you will be bold enough to find a balanced budget that serves students' best interests and is sustainable.