LAUSD Fiscal Presentation Confirms Money Is There for Salary, Staffing, and More

LAUSD doesn’t have a budget crisis — it has a priorities crisis.

Coming off the energy and demonstration of solidarity of Thursday’s regional rallies, the district’s finance team came to bargaining today trying to reinforce their story that LAUSD is on the edge of a fiscal cliff and can’t afford our contract demands. But when the UTLA Bargaining Team pressed them on their calculations, that story quickly fell apart. 

Today, the district acknowledged that the total ending balance from last school year was $5.03 billion — versus the $1.5 billion reserve they presented to the school board and to parents in budget town halls — when they include all the categories of funds that can be spent on educators, students, and schools. 

LAUSD presented a slide projecting a $1.6 billion deficit in unrestricted funding by the 2027-2028 school year. The UTLA Bargaining Team hit back, pointing out that the district’s projections DO NOT include: 
 

• $1.2 billion in additional projected revenue for LAUSD from updated state tax revenue projections 

• $600 million that the school board had contemplated but decided not to transfer to the unnecessary OPEB trust, which was not updated in LAUSD’s projection 

• $575 million in Fund 17, which LAUSD confirmed today are unrestricted funds that can be spent on our contract demands 

When those funds are factored in, the projected balance of the unrestricted reserve fund at the end of the 2027-2028 school year goes from the deficit LAUSD projected (and budgets based on) into a significant surplus.

LAUSD did not challenge this analysis or the math except to say they cannot predict what the state will do with the newly identified increase in revenue. That’s okay — we know what the state will do because it’s the law. Under Prop. 98, 40% of the revenue has to go to education, and based on historical calculations, LAUSD’s share of that is likely to be $1.2 billion over the next two years. 

On top of that, additional revenue can come from fixing the district’s misplaced spending priorities by investing in school staff over consultants, outside contracts, and ed tech.

Bottom line, nothing LAUSD presented today changes the numbers. They have a $5.03 billion reserve that can be used for salary, class size, staffing, and other urgent needs. We were able today to clearly point out to the district’s bargaining team where the money is to fund our proposals. 

The UTLA team presented a number of proposals today, including on Adult Education, BSAP, leaves and absences, temporary reassignments, Autonomous Schools, and Special Education. We reached Tentative Agreements on two articles. First, we reached an agreement to eliminate the self-destructive policy of providing employees with leave from LAUSD to start a charter school. Second, we reached an agreement on a professional growth task force to support career advancement.   

But LAUSD still brought nothing meaningful today on salary; hiring more psychologists, PSAs, PSWs, and counselors; class-size reduction; and other demands. The next bargaining sessions are scheduled for November 17 and 20. 

Progress was made last week in healthcare — now we need progress on other threshold issues. In the next phase of the contract campaign, we will build on the regional rallies to grow our power and put pressure on LAUSD to settle.