Time is running out for the OUSD board to rein in spending

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The Oakland Unified School District board approved its 2025–2026 budget on Wednesday, but without a further overhaul of spending next year, the district could face insolvency.

Capping a year of infighting and split decisions, the budget approval comes as the district is leaving state receivership and community groups are pressuring the board for more transparency and accountability.

The district’s chief business officer, Lisa Grant-Dawson, drew attention to OUSD’s ongoing structural deficit and called on the board to provide direction as the budget development process kicks off in the fall. Without an extra layer of oversight from the county imposed by receivership, board directors will be solely responsible for keeping district finances on track.

“Your people are relying on you,” Grant-Dawson said. “As of July 1, it’s on you. You won’t have the county, the Department of Finance, [Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team]. Nobody’s coming to say a word. They’ll just be watching.”

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Over the last few years, Grant-Dawson’s team has repeatedly incorporated one-time budget adjustments to resolve deficits, while urging the board to take a broader look at spending and make recommendations for programs to trim to achieve sustainability. At times, the board has sought to close or merge schools to save money, arguing that operating under-enrolled schools can be a drain on the budget. But those decisions were frequently met with backlash and reversed.

The approved budget maintains a 2.9% reserve — higher than the state’s required 2%, but a bit under the district’s own policy of 3% — leaving just a $329,000 cushion for discretionary spending.

“To show that there is $329,182 left in the district above our reserve in next year’s budget shows we have no money left,” said Mike Hutchinson, the director representing District 4, which covers parts of East Oakland and the hills. “If anything unforeseen happens, we can’t afford it. If there’s any overspending, we can’t afford it. If any of our labor partners’ contracts expire and they want to negotiate a new contract, there’s no money set aside for it.”

Some labor contracts on Wednesday’s agenda for board approval have yet to be incorporated into the budget; nor have any changes to the state budget that could impact OUSD. Grant-Dawson is expected to present a revised budget to the board in the fall. If the board makes no changes to its spending strategies, OUSD would face a $78 million deficit for the 2026–2027 school year, Grant-Dawson said.

“If we’re at 2.9% reserve, this is not an amber light anymore that’s blinking. It’s red. The district needs your partnership to figure out next steps,” Grant-Dawson said. “We know where the answer is. We’re going to have to reduce programs and we’re going to have to reduce staffing.”

In April, Alameda County Superintendent Alysse Castro wrote a letter to the board laying out the stakes.

“While the internal fiscal system and controls are much stronger today than they were 20 years ago, many of OUSD’s long standing, structural issues that led to financial instability remain,” Castro wrote. “The board will need to contend with these issues, including the landscape of declining student enrollment, historical overinvestment in micro schools, and billions of dollars in deferred maintenance needs that contribute to huge disparities between OUSD’s very high per pupil revenue and low pupil performance.”

Last fall, the board briefly considered consolidating 10 schools based at shared campuses, but that resolution failed after hundreds of families, teachers, and community members urged the board to abandon the plan. In the spring, a proposal to reduce the district’s private contracts sparked confusion and controversy when it became clear that it would impact contracts with community organizations that provide after school programs. That move was also reversed after a backlash.

Jennifer Brouhard, the school board president, said she plans to use the summer to talk with administrators and principals to take stock of where cuts could be made.

“We’re going to have to look at things that we have had, and like having, but can’t afford,” Brouhard told The Oaklandside.

Also on Wednesday, the board approved a contract for Denise Saddler, whom the board selected to serve as interim superintendent from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. Her base salary will be $357,054.

Saddler, a past president of the teachers’ union, has worked in OUSD as a principal and administrator, and in more recent years served as interim principal at several schools. She has also been an assistant superintendent in Berryessa Union School District, and currently lectures at the UC Berkeley School of Education.

Last August, as the school year began, the board approved a new three-year contract for Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell, who had led the district since 2017. Her contract included a transition period beginning in September 2025, during which she would step back from day-to-day superintendent duties as the board launched a search for her replacement. Just eight months later, after a school board election that added two new directors, the board and Johnson-Trammell abruptly reached a separation agreement. Johnson-Trammell will remain in OUSD as superintendent emeritus until January 15 of next year.

On Tuesday, the Oakland NAACP chapter held a press conference with two education advocacy groups, Families in Action and Latino Action Network, calling on the school board to be more transparent in its actions and scrutinizing recent decisions around the early end of the superintendent’s contract, negotiations with labor unions, and the budget process.

The coalition presented five demands: asking the board to host forums to get community input on leadership and budget decisions, to adopt a fiscally sound budget by June 30, to share how the school board and interim superintendent plan to engage with community groups and explain their decision making, to end infighting and work more collaboratively to improve student achievement, and to respond quickly to invitations for collaboration from the NAACP and other community organizations.

“OUSD has engaged in a pattern of making decisions in closed sessions, including budget decisions that harm our children, without any fair opportunity for public input and without reporting some of those decisions as required by the Brown Act,” said Viveca Ycoy-Walton, an organizer with Families in Action. “The public has lost trust in the OUSD board because it does not appear that the best interests of students are prioritized.”

Wednesday was the last school board meeting of the academic year. School begins August 11, and the first board meeting of the school year will take place August 13.

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Ashley McBride writes about education equity for The Oaklandside. Her work covers Oakland’s public district and charter schools. Before joining The Oaklandside in 2020, Ashley was a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News and the San Francisco Chronicle as a Hearst Journalism Fellow. In 2024, Ashley received the California School Board Association's Golden Quill Award, which recognizes fair, accurate, and insightful reporting on public schools. Ashley earned her master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University and holds a certificate in education finance from Georgetown University.