For months, educators and administrators at San Diego Unified have searched for ways to close a yawning $95 million budget deficit. At tonight’s board meeting, trustees will vote on the district’s plan to bridge the gap, which includes laying off hundreds of district employees.
According to documents uploaded prior to tomorrow’s meeting, district administrators are proposing eliminating nearly 500 positions between certificated and classified staff. Hundreds of staff members seem to have answered the district’s call to voluntarily leave, which included a $1,000 sweetener for teachers willing to retire early.
The numbers: It seems only about 240 staff will actually be laid off. That’s because many of those whose positions will be eliminated may end up being shuffled to other positions for which they’re qualified. Exact numbers are still a bit fuzzy though, and will remain in flux as the budget continues to shift in the coming months.
Back in June, the district revealed it was facing a projected nearly $130 million budget deficit in the 2024-25 school year. The staggering sum came from a confluence of factors: Covid-era funds were expiring, continued enrollment declines and a statewide budget crunch meant less money would be coming from Sacramento. The district’s new union contract that included significant raises for teachers also came with a price tag of hundreds of millions over multiple years.
Though district officials initially expressed confidence they’d be able to weather the fiscal storm without layoffs, last month board member Cocy Petterson said the quiet part out loud: layoffs were coming.
Exactly who will be left standing when the game of musical chairs ends depends on a complex set of criteria. It includes seniority and the credentials and degrees teachers have attained, with the final tiebreaker being the sum of the last four digits of an employee’s social security number.
Of the positions that require a teaching certificate being eliminated, nearly half are elementary school teachers. Other certificated staff include central office administrators, associate principals and a principal, according to district documents. On the non-credentialed side (or classified, as schools refer to them), administrators are proposing eliminating positions such as food service workers, bus drivers, campus police officers, family services assistants and its director of communications.
How Eight Dead Whales Ended Up In San Diego’s Landfills
In the past 10 years, 36 dead whales have ended up along San Diego County shores. Of those 36, eight were buried in landfills.
That’s one of the ways local officials get rid of dead whale carcasses, our MacKenzie Elmer reports. Other methods include towing whale bodies to the middle of the ocean so that they can eventually sink to the bottom of the sea or burying them in the sand where they washed up and letting them decompose.
Most scientists studying deep ocean environments agree that burying whales in the trash isn’t their preferred method. Instead, allowing it to sink to the bottom of the sea can produce and feed ecosystems.
Read the Environment Report here.
Escondido’s New Homelessness Policy Could Impact Future Funding
Escondido’s City Council approved a new homelessness policy last week that rejects Housing First and calls for a “public safety-first” approach to addressing homelessness. This means the city could lose out on potential state and federal dollars that are specifically tied to the Housing First policy.
What this means: Housing First is the idea that providing a stable home is the first step to helping people recover from life on the streets and drug and mental health crises.
Escondido’s new policy says that doesn’t work, and the focus should instead be on addressing substance abuse and untreated mental health concerns.
But on the state and federal level, Housing First is the official policy. Any programs or shelters that deviate from that won’t be eligible for certain state and federal dollars. Escondido’s council majority, though, said they’ll just find other funding sources for their future shelters and projects.
What else: The policy also calls for tougher consequences on criminal activity among the city’s homeless population, and says the city will eventually open a city-run shelter that requires sobriety and prioritizes Escondido’s unhoused residents.
Read more about the new policy here. And what this could mean for the city.
In Other News
- Today is the Primary Election! We’ll roundup the results for you tomorrow in the Morning Report. If you still need to vote, here are resources from the county.
- The Associated Press reports that at least 10 people were hospitalized after trying to climb over the border wall this weekend.
- Five recreation centers in the city of San Diego want to offer affordable child care services, but the city needs to find money to do it. Remember: Two years ago, voters passed a measure to allow child care in public parks and rec centers. (Union-Tribune)
- A shelter is trying to get more pets into homes by cutting adoption fees this month. (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Jakob McWhinney, Tigist Layne and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.