In a reversal of sorts, there won’t be any WCCUSD budget cuts for the next two years if the school board has its way.
The board approved the district’s 2026-27 budget Wednesday night and opted to use an unexpected operating surplus of $12.2 million to avoid additional budget cuts. WCCUSD projects total revenues of about $532.5 million for the 2026–2027 school year and $520.3 million in expenditures.
Instead of holding those surplus dollars in reserve, as advised by district leaders, the board voted 3-2 to use the surplus and continue pulling from reserves to avoid more budget cuts.
“Our district needs a moment to stabilize,” board clerk Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy said at the meeting. “This is not about avoiding hard decisions forever. It is about creating breathing room. It is about giving our schools a chance to recover after years of instability.”
Gonzalez-Hoy had asked district staff earlier this month for a plan that would use additional one-time surplus dollars from the state to avoid budget cuts. His proposal was supported by board President Guadalupe Enllana and trustee Cinthia Hernandez.
“We’re repeatedly cutting programs, reducing staff, and asking our schools to do more with less,” Hernandez said Wednesday. “If we truly believe this board is committed to changing course, then we should use available one-time funds as intended to reset this district, preserve critical student services, and develop a sustainable financial plan instead of continuing the cycle of cutting and kicking the can.”
Some WCCUSD leaders say using one-time surplus is shortsighted
However, Trustees Leslie Reckler and Jamela Smith-Folds voted against it.
Smith-Folds called the resolution a “Band-Aid” that only delays cuts — a sentiment shared by the district’s budget director Jeff Carter.
Reckler tried to offer a compromise. She suggested taking more time to look at how dollars could be used to “save some money, invest in some new programs … and perhaps eliminate some cuts.”
Reckler said the core issue is that the district spends more than it receives. Instead of using surplus dollars to temporarily alleviate the structural deficit, Reckler said the district should pause and think critically about how it can use those one-time funds to make schools attractive and increase declining enrollment.
WCCUSD enrollment and average daily attendance
“I do not believe using them to preserve the status quo is the best use of those dollars,” Reckler said. “Instead, we should be asking larger and deeper questions about the long-term viability of this district and investing in reinvention if we want to slow future cuts.”
For example, Reckler said more than 7,000 students are enrolled at charter schools within WCCUSD’s boundaries, and more than 1,000 others attend private schools, are homeschooled or are enrolled elsewhere.
“What will bring them back?,” Reckler said. “How do we improve teaching and learning, strengthen literacy, academic outcomes, improve school climate, offer innovative programs that families cannot find elsewhere, improve attendance, raise student achievement. These are the investments that have a chance of creating long-term fiscal stability.”
The resolution essentially reverses a three-year fiscal solvency plan initially approved by the board in January.
The three-year plan called for significant cuts to rectify the $127 million shortfall. Most of the cuts were made this year. The district cut about 10% of its workforce, closed Betty Reid Soskin Middle School and ended a number of programs, saving an estimated $87 million, according to district documents.
Despite the cuts, the district still was facing an additional $14.2 million cut in the coming school year to end the structural deficit. It was also facing an additional $14.2 million shortfall in the 2027-28 school year. Now, by using the surplus funds, the district will instead pull from its reserves to avoid making any cuts until the 2028-29 school year.
The dollars used to avoid the cuts comes from a $21 million Student Support Professional Development Grant, $1.8 million from restricted learning recovery emergency block grant, and about $12 million from its Fund 17 reserve account, Carter said at the meeting.
Superintendent Cheryl Cotton said she believes relying on one-time funds is to blame for the district’s current financial situation.
“To continue to use one time funds to get us out of the situation, we’re just prolonging, and we know that eventually we’re gonna have to, you know, pay the piper,” Cotton said.
At the same time, the superintendent also conceded that it would be very difficult to continue making more cuts.
“I think (we are) at bare bones at this point. We have restructured our district office. We have reduced again a number of programs, and we are struggling to make sure that we are able to do the work that we need to do in order to support our students,” Cotton said.
Had the district not approved this resolution and moved forward with cuts as planned, Cotton said it most likely would’ve meant more layoffs and reductions to student programs.
