Sacramento City Unified’s chief business officer presented a draft fiscal solvency plan after the district’s unaudited 2024–25 results showed an unexpectedly large decline in unrestricted fund balance and a multi‑year structural deficit.

The plan identifies two immediate financial challenges: a difference of roughly $43 million between previously projected and final 2024–25 unrestricted fund balance and a projected cash shortfall late in the current fiscal year. CBO Janae Marking told the board the district’s beginning fund balance for 2025–26 is lower than expected and that, absent corrective action, the district risks failing to meet the minimum state reserve and could trigger further county oversight.

Marking laid out a multi‑tiered set of responses. Near‑term actions proposed for 2025–26 include drawing up to $20 million from the district’s OPEB trust to free up unrestricted funding, reclassifying allowable expenditures to restricted grants, sweeping and freezing non‑essential supply blanket purchase orders, delaying large one‑time purchases (including a math textbook adoption and a Chromebook refresh), freezing non‑required per diems and overtime, and tightening position control to remove unneeded vacancies. The presentation also recommended examining programmatic changes that would reduce central costs, such as consolidating adult education sites and ending centrally funded sixth‑grade camp support.

For 2026–27 the plan proposes deeper structural actions: department reallocations, reductions to centrally funded programs, elimination of low‑usage platforms and redundant software, revisiting the priority school allocation model, and evaluating high‑cost programs (including the configuration of IB and other advanced pathways) to identify savings while protecting student services where possible.

Marking told the board the plan is a collaborative draft based on cabinet discussions and stakeholder ideas and emphasized that numbers must be matched to implementation to realize savings. She said FCMAT (Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team) is conducting a fiscal health risk analysis and that the county office has given the district a November/December timeline for adopting a plan to avoid deeper intervention.

Board members pressed for expedited action. Trustee Kayeata asked the superintendent and CBO to schedule a special meeting within a week to adopt immediate spending freezes and requested that staff return to the Nov. 20 meeting with numeric estimates tied to specific reductions so the board can certify a plan to meet reserve requirements. Trustees repeatedly stressed keeping cuts away from direct classroom services where possible while directing more reductions at central administration and non‑essential contracts. Several trustees said they wanted a target for reducing administrative FTE toward a pre‑COVID level as a visible demonstration of priority shifts.

The board did not adopt the plan at the meeting but directed staff to return with more detailed financial estimates and to use the November 20 board meeting as the target for formal adoption. Marking said staff will continue to gather feedback from employee groups, labor partners and departments and that some actions could be implemented this fiscal year if the board so directs.