Pasadena Unified certifies first interim budget, signals ongoing cuts under fiscal stabilization plan

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education voted to certify its first interim financial report for the 2025–26 school year, endorsing the fiscal stabilization plan the board approved in November.

The district’s chief budget officer, Dr. Canal, told trustees the first interim reflects fire-related revenues and higher 2024–25 ending balances that materially changed the district’s projection. He said the report assumes the fiscal stabilization plan is implemented and that, with those assumptions, the district can meet its financial obligations in 2025–26 through 2027–28. He highlighted a projected transfer from Fund 17 that was removed from the current-year plan and other technical adjustments, including an $11.5 million transfer noted in the adopted budget that is no longer projected to be needed in 2025–26.

The certification follows months of budget work and public pressure after the Eaton Fire and the November vote that approved a set of staffing and program reductions. Trustees asked a long list of clarifying questions about assumptions in the report: how direct-certification rule changes might affect unduplicated pupil counts and LCFF funding, the reduction in supplemental and concentration LCFF estimates (roughly $800,000–$900,000), and a sharp increase in the district’s liability for compensated absences that rose from about $3 million to $11 million in one reporting period. Dr. Canal committed to providing further detail in memos ahead of the second interim and to bringing the external audit presentation in February.

Board members repeatedly returned the conversation to the underlying trade-offs the stabilization plan requires. Trustee McKenzie and others said the district may still need additional reductions next year depending on the governor’s January budget and May revisions. Trust representatives and staff told the board they had identified options that could reduce impact on classrooms, but that the adopted plan required work and further negotiation to implement without harming student supports.

What happens next: staff will continue implementation steps, host budget meetings with departments and site administrators, and present updated forecasts at second interim. Trustees directed staff to produce follow-up explanations on several items, including the compensated-absence liability and how declines in LCFF supplemental funding will be managed at the school level. The board’s certification does not itself authorize new hires or reversals of the stabilization plan; it records the district’s current multi-year projection and the expectation that the fiscal plan will be carried out.

Trustee and staff quotes are drawn from the meeting record and public presentation.