The San Francisco Unified School District could be facing a $400 million shortfall in two years if cuts aren’t made, according to Superintendent Matt Wayne.
“We’re projecting reducing the budget by $100 million dollars for next year and then another $50 million beyond,” Wayne said.
He’s proposing cutting 927 currently open positions across the district, which will make up the bulk of the $100 million dollar cuts Wayne wants to make this year.
Once those open jobs are officially eliminated, according to the superintendent, the school system’s budget will be mostly balanced.
“We have a few other areas that we’re looking, like where we spend money on consultants, or on the district office or how we’re staffing our schools,” Wayne said. “We’ll be looking at that through the budget planning process.”
For the teachers union, the budget cuts and a coming vote to formalize pay raises for its members are both welcome items.
When asked by NBC Bay Area if there was anything controversial about those two items, United Educators of San Francisco President Cassandra Curiel said, “The only controversy is that it’s taken so long to get here, and that this hasn’t been done by previous administrations.”
The teachers union has long been critical of the district’s spending on consultants and central office staffing. And while there is some concern over the elimination of vacant jobs at each campus, there’s also an understanding that SFUSD — like many districts in the Bay Area — continues to see dropping enrollment.
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“One of the reasons we can eliminate these vacant positions is, we’ve had declining enrollment and we don’t need as many positions going forward,” Wayne Said.
Wayne added that, at the moment, there are no plans to close or consolidate any of the district’s campuses.
