The WCCUSD school board is expected to vote next week on whether to cut an additional $13 million from its 2025-26 and 2026-27 operating budgets by laying off employees, including 17 classroom teachers this year, and leaving positions unfilled.
The equivalent of 43 positions this year and 47 positions next year will be impacted.
If it doesn’t make the cuts the district risks losing budgetary control of its schools, said interim superintendent Kim Moses, who previously was the district’s associate superintendent of business services. The district did not respond to a Richmondside question about if or how impacted staff might be shuffled into current teacher vacancies.
Despite already making $19 million in cuts this school year, the district still has a “significant structural deficit,” Moses said at the board’s first meeting of 2025.
Because the bulk of the district’s expenses are salaries, staff positions account for the majority of the proposed reductions.
“We do want to ensure that this is done with dignity,” Moses said. “We understand that these reductions will directly affect individuals who have dedicated their careers to serving our students.”
Moses said programs — such as the International Baccalaureate programs and bilingual and dual immersion programs — will not be eliminated.
Francisco Ortiz, president of United Teachers of Richmond, the union representing teachers, said there are already too many unfilled positions in the district, and it cannot afford to further reduce staff.
If you go
WHAT: WCCUSD school board meeting
WHEN: 6:30 p.m., Jan. 29
WHERE: LoVonya DeJean Middle School, 3400 Macdonald Ave., or virtually.
MORE INFO: Agendas are usually posted a few days before the meeting. Learn more in our guide to how the school board works.
“In secondary schools alone, we have 27 vacant FTEs — full-time equivalent (positions),” he said. “And in elementary, it’s 30.8 vacancies and 22 in special ed. The majority of these folks are teachers, some counselors in elementary, but the majority are classroom teachers.” Most schools, he said, have to use substitutes daily.
The number of vacancies is so high, in fact, that the district is reassigning nearly two dozen staffers mid-year — something a number of teachers spoke to the school board about recently, saying it creates chaos for students and employees.
Declining enrollment to blame for districts’ budget issues
In addition to persistent budget deficits, the school district is facing a change in top leadership, declining enrollment (currently 25,000), a sluggish improvement in post-COVID test scores, teacher shortages, and sometimes-contentious school board meetings. These problems are not uncommon in the Bay Area — both San Francisco and Oakland are also facing the prospect of a state takeover.
Declining enrollment — by 8% over the past four years alone — is perhaps west Contra Costa County’s primary concern, according to Michael Fine, CEO of California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, an agency created by the state to help districts resolve financial and management problems.
Fine largely attributes the decline — which is mirrored in many other districts, and the state as a whole — to lower birth rates.
“It’s a long-term problem” for schools, he said. “Right now, schools are feeling it most in kindergarten and elementary school. In 10 years, it will be middle school, then high school.”
As enrollment declines, so, too, does the WCCUSD’s revenues. Another factor reducing income is the end of the federal government’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, designed to help with COVID recovery. The fund brought the district about $53 million by 2023.
“Look, I understand. No one joins a school board to lay off people,” Fine says. “But your revenue is going away, and they’re overstaffed compared to their enrollment.”
The WCCUSD school board recently hired David Hart as chief business manager, at least through the remainder of the school year. He’s the highly regarded former chief financial officer of the massive Los Angeles Unified, a district 20 times the size of WCCUSD. Fine is hopeful Hart’s experience with a vastly more complex district will accelerate the district’s path to recovery.
“They are hiring a very skilled interim CBO,” he said. “I hope they listen to him.”
WCCUSD budget cut plan
Former superintendent Chris Hurst stepped down in December after a little more than three years on the job. And until a permanent superintendent is hired, addressing district issues rests on Moses and the WCCUSD board, which just chose a new president, Leslie Reckler, and seated two newcomers with no elected experience: Cinthia Hernandez, representing Richmond (which is in Area 3) and Guadalupe Enllana (Area 2).
The reduction plan — which includes $7.2 million in cuts next year and $6 million the following — comes on the heels of $19 million in cuts for the 2024-25 school year.
The board has discussed ways to increase revenue, for example by boosting attendance, which largely determines how much money the district gets from the state. Right now, the average daily attendance rate in the district is about 92%. Moses said increasing it by 3% would bring in an additional $7.7 million.
This year’s $509 million operating budget includes $233 million in restricted dollars. Restricted dollars cannot be used to pay for staff because they fund after-school and college and career programs, among other specific, restricted uses.
The district spends $118 million on special education programs and services, money that comes from a combination of federal, state, and local sources.
In 1991, the WCCUSD had the unfortunate distinction of being the first in the state to go insolvent. As a solution, the district received a $29 million bailout loan, which took 21 years to pay off. Now it is trying to avoid a similar fate.
In December, the school board passed a budget that members said met the standard to receive a “positive certification,” which under state regulations means it won’t spend its entire reserve over the next three years.
But the Contra Costa County Office of Education has refused to approve that certification without the district providing a multiyear deficit-reduction plan.
The proposed reduction plan was first presented at the Jan. 8 meeting. If it goes into effect, district employees whose positions are being will be notified by March 15.
EdSource reporters Kenneth Howe and Louis Freedberg contributed to this report.
