What's at stake?
While the equivalent of at least 200 full-time certificated and classified staff positions have been marked for reductions by Fresno Unified, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Jensen says the amount of people without a job after reductions will be close to zero.
Although Fresno Unified plans to cut at least 200 positions, a senior district official said most affected employees would still have a job.
While dozens of positions will be cut, impacted staff will have the option to either “bump” down to a less senior position or move to an alternative position in a different department, under a process Chief Financial Officer Patrick Jensen described to Fresnoland.
“The number of people, I think, who will actually not have a job with Fresno Unified when this is all over, I think is honestly going to be close to zero,” Jensen said.
Fresno Unified employees will be notified by Sunday if their jobs are on the line, according to district officials.
Jensen said employees would still retain benefits and employment within the district, if they accept the alternate roles.
It’s unclear how exactly that will play out, as district officials released two new lists of impacted classified and certificated positions that don’t match up with previous lists from the Feb. 25 board meeting.
Those figures are among many that appear to be changing in real time at California’s third largest school district.
District officials revised their own estimates for Fresno’s Unified’s deficit during the current school year, according to new documents released last week. Although Fresno Unified’s deficit this year was estimated at $77.82 million in December, the district is now $11 million more in the hole.
District officials have also decreased their deficit projection for next year — now estimating a $55 million deficit.
Currently, it’s unclear what the board’s vote on Wednesday will explicitly do for the newly identified classified and certificated positions. A Fresno Unified spokesperson did not immediately provide a comment.
Can a multi-million dollar discretionary fund save the day?
Amidst a dire financial situation at Fresno Unified, the leader of its teachers union says the district should be using a discretionary pool of funds — about $175 million — to save jobs.
“Our concern is that the district often only has one tool that it knows how to use, and in this case, that’s layoffs and whatnot, when there may be other tools in the toolbox that need examining,” Bonilla said in an interview.
That $175 million is referred to as Fresno Unified’s unrestricted ending fund balance. More than half — about $93.2 million — is set aside for the district’s “reserve for economic uncertainties.”
The remaining $81 million is what Bonilla said that district officials could be using to stave off job cuts.
“It’s discretionary money that they could utilize to help weather any potential storms that we may be going through,” said Manuel Bonilla, president of the Fresno Teacher’s Association.
However, that remaining $81 million isn’t a rainy day fund, according to Jensen, Fresno Unified’s chief financial officer. About $32 million is for “pandemic learning and recovery,” another $23.6 million for textbooks, and $20 million for “FTA student support.”
Jensen said the committed funds are actively supporting salaries, benefits and supplies to schools through one time funding.
Pulling back from those commitments, Jensen said, only kicks the financial problem down the road. He added that those required costs wouldn’t vanish if money for textbooks, “pandemic learning and recovery” and “FTA student support” were instead used on something else.
Additionally, moving those funds to stave off layoffs wouldn’t address the root cause of the district’s financial situation, which Jensen described as declining enrollment.
Jensen pointed out that while the district currently projects an unrestricted ending fund balance of $175 million at the end of the current school year, that will get carried over and shrink to $87 million in the 2026-27 school year, which will shrink to $54 million in 2027-28.
“If I was reserving these funds and continuing to just kick the can down the road right and hold them, those numbers wouldn’t be going down like that,” Jensen said, referring to the unrestricted fund balance shrinking annually in the coming years.
If the district’s reserve falls below 2%, the State of California would take control of Fresno Unified under a state receivership. Two years from now, district officials estimate that Fresno Unified’s reserve will teeter on that edge — at 2.77%.
“If we ever project that this (Fresno Unified’s reserve) goes down to zero, we go into what’s called a negative budgetary status — and then shit gets crazy,” Jensen told Fresnoland.
Still, Bonilla said that the $81 million in committed funds are listed under vague categories, and said there’s no guarantee that the district will utilize the funds as labeled.
“I would want to use the money that is unrestricted in order to ensure that our students have the people, the bus drivers, the food service workers, the paraprofessionals [and] the teachers as opposed to programs or consulting or anything else that they plan to spend this money on,” Bonilla said.
Last week, the district released another video as part of its “Focusing on our future” series that talks about the state of Fresno Unified’s finances.
In it, David Chavez, the Fresno Unified’s chief of human resources and labor relations, said staff who are eligible for the employment bumping process will have the opportunity for hearings throughout April.
“Please understand this notice is a statutory requirement and is not a final decision,” Chavez said in the district’s video.
According to Chavez, an administrative judge will provide a proposed decision to the district by May 7 for employees to be bumped down, moved to an alternative position to retain their benefits, or be fired. The district will then issue final layoff notices by May 14.
