BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto’s new superintendent is hiring an outside auditor to verify that the board needs to make $33 million in cuts next year, but the auditor won’t recommend positions or programs for the chopping block.
“There are questions around the district’s projections, estimates, budgeting process,” Superintendent Jason Glass said on Tuesday. “We’re committed to as many reviews of this as possible so that we get to a place where everybody has faith and confidence in the numbers that we’re talking about.”
The audit comes after candidate Avery Wang criticized the district for spending $563,414 on a math skip test and $56,599 on two sushi machines.
“I’m convinced there’s a lot of waste,” Wang said in an interview last week.
But the audit isn’t about what positions or programs the district should consider eliminating, Glass said.
“That really is work that needs to happen here in this community,” he told the board.
The board is facing a $33 million budget deficit in the 2026-27 school year and a $10 million deficit in the 2027-28 school year.
Raises for employees
The projected deficit comes after the board gave 10.4% raises and $10,000 in bonuses to both unions on June 16.
During negotiations, the unions said the district should spend down over $100 million in reserves. But with the raises, those reserves are now projected to be depleted within the next three years.
Teacher Samuel Howles-Banerji said the district has projected budget deficits that turned out to be overstated by $10 million or more.
“Every year for the past five-plus years, we’ve received a doom-and-gloom budget outlook,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Board member Josh Salcman said he wants the unions to have input on who the auditor is so everyone is on the same page about the district’s current financial situation.
“We have to put an end to the era of competing narratives on this basic issue,” he said.
Glass said he’s hiring School Services of California, a financial consulting company based in Sacramento. The audit should be done next month.
Alarmism called prematue
Union president Tom Culbertson said the district is at the beginning of a months-long discussion about budget cuts.
“Rushing into alarmist rhetoric or declaring immediate crisis is simply premature,” he said.
The deadline to give layoff notices to teachers is March 15.
Salcman and board member Shounak Dharap said they approved the raises to avoid a strike and provide stability for Glass.
The unions never threatened to strike.
But Salcman said the unions and the board disagreed on the district’s financial fundamentals, and teachers had gone on strike in other California districts.
“So this did not seem like a crazy idea that we might end up in a similar situation,” he said.
Dharap said the board is responsible for the raises, not the unions.
“We did it for a good reason. We weighed the choices, and whatever the consequence is, is ours to bear,” Dharap said.
Be the first to comment