Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
CNUSD board adopts positive certification for 2025-26 first interim budget; trustees press on $49M flexibility
Summary
Board adopted a positive certification for the 2025-26 first interim budget, reporting a projected ending general fund balance of $229.9 million and a $49 million flexible balance; trustees questioned recurring rollovers and staff said most of the money is one-time carryover and committed funds.
The Corona-Norco Unified School District board adopted a positive certification for its 2025-26 first interim budget at the Dec. 16 meeting after the administrative director of business services presented key assumptions and multi-year projections.
Patty Sanchez, the district's administrative director of business services, told the board the district's projected ending general fund balance for 2025-26 is $229.9 million, including restricted grants, committed funds and other assignments. She explained the budget reflects carryover of prior-year, one-time entitlements and grant funds and the local-control funding formula assumptions.
"Our payroll is an average of $45,000,000 a month," Patty Sanchez said in response to a trustee question, adding that other monthly expenditures are about $50,000,000, for an approximate total of $95,000,000 a month in payroll and other expenses.
Board members pressed staff on a roughly $49 million amount identified as flexible in the fund balance. Trustee comments reflected frustration that the district appears to hold recurring flexible balances while some sites and parents report unmet needs. "It seems to be reoccurring that we sit on this kind of money," one trustee said during the discussion. Staff responded that these funds are largely one-time carryovers from grants or savings and that once spent, they do not create an ongoing revenue source.
Sanchez and other staff described major components of the carryovers and committed funds, including instructional materials, major routine maintenance, technology replacement and two future school site commitments. The presentation also included multi-year projections that assume COLA and enrollment changes; staff said they will update assumptions and bring adjustments in the second interim report in March.
The board adopted the positive certification after questioning and staff explanation; trustees did not vote to reallocate the flexible funds at the meeting. Staff said they will continue to report on expenditures and return with updated numbers as the year unfolds.
The district said it will monitor enrollment data and state budget developments and present a second interim budget in March with any required adjustments.
