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Pajaro Valley Unified budget team narrows options and recommends scaled cuts to meet $5M reduction
Summary
A sustainable-budget committee reviewed five options to meet at least $5 million in reductions, favoring a modified Plan B and a combination plan (D) that would reduce some district-office costs, trim certain one-time-funded positions and partially scale back mental-health and intervention roles while preserving minimum counseling at each site.
Members of the Pajaro Valley Unified Sustainable Budget Team on Dec. (presentation meeting) reviewed five proposals to close an expected roughly $5 million shortfall and coalesced around a modified Plan B and a combination Plan D as recommended options for the school board.
A district staff presenter said the team’s charge was to identify two options for trustees to consider and emphasized that any changes to class size would be decided at the bargaining table, not unilaterally by the district. The presenter outlined Plan A (a right-sizing approach including additional district-office reductions, cuts to academic coordinator positions and reduced elementary release time) and Plan B (reductions to programs funded by one-time ESSER dollars, targeted reductions to social-emotional positions and a proposed $500,000 cut to the PVPSA contract). Plans C–E offered different mixes and a deeper reduction package that would approach $8.8 million.
The committee debated the tradeoffs between intervention teachers, social-emotional counselors and mental-health clinicians. Nelly, who identified herself as the elected president of the educators’ union, told the group that many teachers "can't continue living here with their salary" and clarified that teacher complaints were focused on dental and vision coverage rather than medical benefits. Several participants urged the committee to avoid eliminating all counseling supports, saying counseling is foundational to students’ ability to learn.
On staffing counts and costs, the presenter said the district used a budgeting assumption of about $120,000 per position fully loaded. The district reported employing 15 mental-health clinicians (seven tied to special-education IEPs and eight in general-education roles) and described a pre-pandemic baseline of 12 social-emotional counselors at elementary sites; the proposals would reduce some of the additional counselors hired with one-time funds while preserving at least one intervention teacher per site in several options.
The recommended revised Plan B discussed by small groups would: incorporate an additional $600,000 from academic-coordinator reductions already underway; right-size elementary release time for roughly $1.3 million in savings; maintain a baseline level of social-emotional counseling (aiming to return toward pre-pandemic staffing rather than eliminating all counseling); and include a $500,000 reduction to the PVPSA contract (which the presenter said brings PVPSA funding back toward 2019 levels). Groups reported those changes produced savings estimates near the $5.5 million target.
Committee leaders said the Sustainable Budget Team will prepare a PowerPoint for the Board of Education for the Dec. 16 meeting and present final recommendations to trustees on Jan. 15. The presenter repeatedly emphasized that these are recommendations for the board, and that bargaining and other contract processes govern staffing and layoff procedures.
What happens next: the team plans further refinement with community input and will bring the two recommended options to the board for discussion; formal decisions, and any layoffs or contract changes, would follow board action and applicable labor procedures.
