The vote, which came late in the evening after extending the meeting until 11:30 p.m., was the culmination of months of work by the Superintendent’s Budget Advisory Committee attempting to stave off a potential takeover by the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). In combination with grants and revenue generation, the plan would reduce the 2026-27 fiscal budget by $30.5 million.
The measure was only approved after significant amendments salvaged key student instructional programs by maximizing cuts to the central office—a decision that district staff warned would lead to organizational strain and potentially interrupt critical services.
In the end, board members Kimberly Kenne, Scott Harden, Tina Fredericks and Yarma Velázquez voted in favor of the amended plan, while Michelle Richardson Bailey, Patrice Marshall McKenzie, and Board President Jennifer Hall Lee opposed it. The vote capped a night dominated by pleas to shield school sites from the steepest cuts.
A Structural Crisis Threatening Solvency
The necessity of the cuts was driven home by the grim financial projections shared publicly before the vote. One public speaker noted that the district is facing a structural crisis, not a temporary shortfall, warning that PUSD’s unrestricted fund balance is projected to fall to a negative $42.6 million by the 2027-28 fiscal year. This trajectory represents $149.4 million in deficit spending across just three years.
Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco acknowledged the deep pain the reductions would inflict, stating that the district was losing “people that we care about and love,” but insisted the decisions were required for the future stability of the district following the expiration of major funding streams, including $62 million in COVID money.
Trustee Tina Fredericks described the challenge as an “impossible choice,” akin to “picking which child to give up,” but stressed the board’s fiduciary duty to maintain local control and fiscal responsibility.
The Central Office Trade-Off
The core tension of the debate centered on where the axe should fall: the central office, which handles payroll, curriculum, and technology support, or the school sites, which house teachers, specialized instructors and support staff.
Advocacy groups and union representatives overwhelmingly called for deeper reductions to the central administration, citing “position inflation” over the last decade. The original Fiscal Stabilization Plan proposal featured $3.6 million in central office cuts, but board members decided to maximize the reduction to include Tiers 1, 2, and 3, increasing the central office reduction to $5.1 million.
Some board members said thedy were profoundly worried about the consequences of these centralized cuts, particularly to the Business Office and the Communications Department.
Trustee Michelle Richardson Bailey expressed concern about eliminating positions in payroll, accounts payable, and procurement, referring to the Business Office as the “financial lifeline of this district”. She warned that disruptions there, due to staff departures and heavy workloads, could lead to delays in vendor payments, service interruptions, or payroll errors that would be felt by every employee.
President Jennifer Hall Lee directly questioned staff on how school sites would manage the central office work being eliminated, such as curriculum development and technical support.
Chief Academic Officer Dr. Helen Chan Hill said that the new burden would likely fall on “teacher leaders” at school sites, requiring new external training contracts to manage tasks like Chromebook preparation and curriculum development—functions previously centralized to ensure consistency and compliance.
District staff also cautioned that cutting communications staff in Tiers 1 and 2 could jeopardize the district’s FCC license for its educational broadband system, which generates over $2 million in annual revenue. The cuts also risked compromising the district’s ability to broadcast board meetings in both English and Spanish and quickly deploy emergency messaging, as was crucial during the recent Eaton fire crisis.
Saving Instruction: CTE and Athletics Rescued
The final vote on the Fiscal Stabilization Plan hinged on a sweep motion proposed by Trustee Kimberly Kenne which incorporated several key amendments aimed at protecting instructional programs.
Crucially, the motion sought to exclude all proposed Career Technical Education (CTE) reductions. CTE teachers and parents from Marshall Fundamental Secondary School had argued passionately that cutting the Academy of Creative Industries would result in losing students to charter schools, would violate graduation requirements, and would deplete programs that are driving improved College and Career Readiness Index (CCI) scores—one of the Board’s stated goals.
Kenne noted that cutting CTE alone would require a major restructuring at Muir High School and would require PUSD to return $800,000 in grant money. Board member Scott Harden agreed, emphasizing the need to “put our money where our values are,” by prioritizing CTE as a critical pathway for students.
Athletics emerged as a flashpoint, with parents and students warning that diminishing teams would create inequities and drive families to neighboring districts.
The motion originally sought to delay the athletics decision—a contentious issue where high school principals had settled on proportional cuts based on total student enrollment, rather than equal cuts or consolidating sports at only two schools. This proportional method, however, meant some schools, like Marshall, would face a 57% cut, receiving the lowest resources per student athlete.
Dr. Velasquez introduced a critical friendly amendment: to use the surplus gained from maximizing central office cuts (Tiers 1, 2, and 3) to eliminate Athletics Package B entirely. This amendment effectively reduced the overall athletics cut from 50% down to a 25% reduction. This compromise was also supported by district staff, who noted that a sudden shift to the “two-school” consolidation model would require extensive long-term planning, and the immediate financial impact would be the same.
The approved sweep motion ultimately included:
- Central Office Reductions: Inclusion of Tiers 1, 2, and 3.
- CTE Programs: Exclusion of CTE Packages A and B.
- Athletics: Exclusion of Athletics Package B, retaining only the 25% reduction outlined in Package A.
These combined actions resulted in a final approved reduction totaling $24,525,085 from the three major work streams.
The Weight of Governance
The debate highlighted the immense burden felt by the elected officials facing a problem they characterized as systemic.
Trustee Patrice Marshall McKenzie confessed to being “incredibly conflicted,” acknowledging that she understood the obligation to make a “courageous decision” even if unpopular, but struggled to find the path that was “least impactful”. She cautioned against the prevailing assumption that central office functions were disposable, emphasizing that services like payroll and benefits are centralized precisely so that educators can focus on “teaching and learning”.
Trustee Bailey placed the issue within a larger context, asserting that the crisis is a “systemic problem” stemming from unfunded mandates and that “public education is not funded adequately”. She also clarified a persistent community misconception, confirming that funding generated from the sale of district properties is legally restricted to facilities and cannot be used to close the general fund deficit at the root of the current cuts.
Several board members echoed the public demand for long-term strategies beyond immediate cost-cutting.
Trustee Kenne questioned whether the need to cut essential staff across all schools indicated that the district has “too many schools,” initiating the difficult discussion of school consolidation.
The Road Ahead
While the approved Fiscal Stabilization Plan moves forward to the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) with the required reductions achieved through maximizing central cuts and protecting core instructional programs, the unanimous vote signals the beginning, not the end, of the district’s efforts to achieve stability. Many expressed the belief that without addressing underlying structural issues, including facility management and enrollment alignment, the board would face similar painful decisions in the coming years.
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