The Oakland Unified School District approved a $103 million budget plan that includes vague cuts and hopes to boost attendance rates to generate additional revenue, in an effort to repair its bleak budget hole.
If the district is unable to pass a balanced budget by June or runs out of cash, Oakland Unified could return to state control just months after exiting it
The district’s board of education approved the cuts by 5-2 margin at last week’s board meeting, which was plagued with board member in-fighting and finger-pointing. Board members Mike Hutchinson and Patrice Berry opposed the budget plan.
The plan includes $12 million in cuts to special education — but doesn’t outline how the cuts will be made. It leaves up to schools, rather than the board, about $32 million in cuts to school campus budgets — trims that could hit athletics, clubs and library services.
Brought forward by interim superintendent Denise Gail Saddler, the plan also proposes slashing central management staff, reducing overtime, consolidating academic programs, delaying non-critical campus and technology repairs and reducing academic internships and apprenticeships.
To fill the budget gap, the district also hopes to bring in $20 million by increasing attendance — 2% for this year and 2% for the 2026-27 school year — since schools in California are funded based on the number of students who attend each day. But the budget scenario doesn’t include how Oakland Unified plans to increase attendance both years. It’s a challenging goal given that schools across the Bay Area, including Oakland Unified, are struggling with declining enrollment and chronic absenteeism. To further increase the number of students, the budget scenario also proposes expanding transitional kindergarten for an additional $1.5 million in revenue — another change that would likely require additional staffing.
Oakland Unified board member Hutchinson said the board for failed to “bring forward any plan to address the financial crisis” in a social media post Monday. Hutchinson was critical of the approved budget scenario, which he said was impractical and doesn’t address the fact that the district is currently overspending and has more staff than it can afford.
“Eighty percent of our budget goes to staffing. So if we are going to address a budgetary shortfall, probably 80% of how it’s addressed is going to be staffing,” Hutchinson said. “That’s why their so-called solutions are not legitimate and are laughable because they don’t look at where we spend our money and they’re not real plans. That’s why we still don’t have a plan to address $100 million.”
The plan comes amid several months of financial crisis for the district, which was once projected to run out of cash as early as this fall, and two months after the school board was expected to deal with the budget crunch. The cash-strapped district’s once $78 million budget deficit for 2026-27 ballooned to over $100 million. District staff warned that without significant cuts and quick action, Oakland Unified faces bankruptcy, would once again need an emergency loan and would be subject to the same state receivership it was under for 20 years.
Last month, Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro warned that Oakland Unified will “almost certainly” fail to get through another school year without significant financial changes and criticized the board for coming up with numerous plans to “make a plan” instead of taking concrete action to repair the issue.
The proposed budget solution comes amid the departure of two key school officials — the chief of staff Dan Bellino and the chief business officer Lisa Grant-Dawson.
Board member Hutchinson confirmed Grant-Dawson resigned Friday and that Bellino was fired. Hutchinson compared the staff changes to the ousting of former Oakland Unified superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, who was unexpectedly removed last April after nearly 10 years leading the district.
Oakland Unified School District did not respond to a request for comment. Board vice president Valarie Bachelor posted on social media Monday, saying she appreciated the service of the staff who were leaving and wished them well.
“Leadership transitions are never easy,” Bachelor said. “I stand with our interim superintendent and her need to develop a senior leadership team that can support our district through the next phase of the work.”