The West Contra Costa Unified School District board on Wednesday night declined to adopt its $509 million 2024-25 budget as planned, a district spokesperson confirmed Thursday, because the board rejected the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan.
Richmondside freelance photographer David Buechner, a Richmond resident, was at the meeting photographing the board members for another story. He said the issue ended up disrupting the meeting as the district tabled any finance-related action items as it tried, unsuccessfully, to get adequate legal advice late in the evening.
The board didn’t have enough votes to approve the LCAP plan, with Trustee Gonzalez Hoy absent and Trustee Otheree Christian abstaining. The only “yes” vote was Jamela Smith-Folds, Board President. Since the accountability plan was not approved, there was no vote on the budget.
In an emailed statement to Richmondside, Superintendent Kenneth Hurst said he was “deeply disappointed” by the board’s rejection of the LCAP.
“The responsibility to adopt a WCCUSD LCAP Plan and 2024-25 school year budget is now delegated to the Contra Costa County Office of Education,” Hurst wrote. “Until they impose the new plan and budget for our district, we must revert to operating under the third interim budget for the 2023-24 school year, adopted on May 29, 2024. We are confident that the county will review our circumstance with a student-focused lens and do what is necessary to support our students.”
California school districts are required to use LCAPs to work with parents, educators, students, and the community to show how they will serve high-needs students.
Christian, of Trustee Area 2, which includes Richmond, told Richmondside Thursday that he abstained from voting on the budget because he thought the LCAP plan was insufficient.
“The LCAP should have more clarity on how everything is being done and how it’s being used,” Christian said. “The main thing is: Is everything done right? You know, you’ve got African-American students in low-income areas. We need to know how this is being done for all students.”
Christian said he thinks that district staff should have brought the accountability plan to the board and the public earlier in the budgeting process.
What is the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan?
The 203-page 2024-25 Local Control Accountability Plan outlines how $64 million of the district’s total budget is used to serve its population of foster children, English learners, and low-income students. The plan contains multiple rubrics that outline goals for addressing specific issues many of these students face — such as low literacy and graduation rates — and then assesses the district’s progress toward addressing such problems.
For example, a problem outlined in the LCAP states: The district has a 56.5% English learner population dropout rate, with 38.5% chronically absent, and 4.8% receiving suspensions of at least one day in a school year.
The district’s LCAP says that it’s addressing these issues by taking the following actions:
- Collaborating with school sites to leverage community-based resources, address parent and family support needs, and promote substantial connections
between schools and families. - Providing funds for theater managers, instrumental music program and arts
integration training for classroom teachers.
“We expect these actions to significantly decrease the chronic absenteeism and suspension rates for our (high-needs) students,” the plan states, regarding this one particular issue. “To maximize the impact of these actions in reducing chronic absenteeism, suspensions, and dropout rates throughout the district, these actions are being provided on a district-wide basis.”
Parents responsible for advising the district on the LCAP also had recommended that the board not approve it, according to Lucas Menanix, Richmond resident and chair of the LCAP parent advisory committee.
Menanix told Richmondside Thursday it was unclear how LCAP programs are designed to effectively use funds to support all students equitably, particularly with a 60% cut in the budget due to a loss of Title I funding.
Districts can decide how they distribute these funds, and the LCAP must meet state standards for demonstrating that the money is effectively serving all students, particularly those with the highest needs. Menanix said that the LCAP presented to the board Wednesday simply couldn’t do that.
“The district did not provide any clear metrics for efficacy,” Menanix said. “We’re trying to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For example we have $5 million of elementary support. The question is, how is that money used? If it’s for staffing, where are they (working) among our elementary schools? What are the efficacy metrics that we’re going to use to evaluate them?”
“”
Is everything done right? You know, you’ve got African-American students in low-income areas. We need to know how this is being done for all students.”
— WCCUSD board trustee Otheree Christian
Want to learn more about the West Contra Costa Unified School District board, including when it meets and who your local board members are? Read our guide to how the board works.
Under the column titled “Metrics to Monitor Effectiveness” of the above actions, the LCAP is required to note what’s being measured (for example, drop-out rates) but in this case there was no statistical information provided on progress.
Mister Phillips, trustee of Area 3, said that he voted “no” on the accountability plan and the proposed budget because he did not think that it showed that the district listened to the community.
“I have consistently advocated for a balanced and focused budget since joining the school board in 2016,” Phillips told Richmondside on Thursday. “The proposed budget was neither. With my vote, I invited our local county (office of education) superintendent (Lynn Mackey) to the table. I hope that she will work with us to create a balanced and focused budget that prioritizes the school district’s strategic plan.”
Leslie Reckler, trustee of Area 5, also said she rejected the accountability plan because she thinks it is an “unclear” document.
“(The LCAP) needs to be a much clearer document around dollars spent, how the programs did, and public engagement,” Reckler told Richmondside. “I’m not sure what successes they had with the money. I believe the district tried really hard, but it’s not well-explained.”
She added: “This new three-year LCAP seems to have collapsed so many categories into big buckets that it will make it hard to track any individual success metrics over the next three years. To me, this document seems less transparent than ever before,” she said.
What does it mean for district to not have a new budget yet?
School districts are required by law to adopt upcoming fiscal year budgets by July 1, and the impacts of the board’s rejection of the budget on the district’s current operations is unknown.
The County Office of Education will review what happened and tell the district what it must do moving forward, including revising the budget and attempting to pass it again, Reckler said.
The county Office of Education, in a statement emailed to Richmondside from Communications Director Marcus Walton, said:
“While the result of last night’s Board meeting complicates an already challenging financial situation, members of the community should know that WCCUSD schools will continue to operate, and employees will continue to be paid as we work through the LCAP approval process. At this point, it is the role of the Contra Costa County Office of Education to support WCCUSD staff to address the board’s concerns and implement a budget as soon as possible.”
Smith-Folds told Richmondside in the interim the district will not be able to make budget transfers or spend supplemental concentration dollars from the accountability plan budget.
Is this the same “plan” that hid the Gateway to College program in the Excel spreadsheet along with copy machines and snacks? For shame.