Oakland Unified School District’s budget is in even more trouble than was originally thought back when it was finalized in June, district officials announced this week.
When the final accounting for the district’s revenue and spending for 2024-25 was recently completed, it showed the “Unrestricted General Fund” balance dropped from $58.4 million to $55.8 million, which is this fiscal year’s starting point, according to an announcement from OUSD’s chief business officer Lisa Grant-Dawson.
“While $55.8 million may seem like a lot of money, that same Unrestricted General Fund Balance was $118 million just one year ago. That’s a 53% decrease,” Grant-Dawson said.
Also, the “Base General Fund,” which is part of the Unrestricted General Fund and which she called the district’s “core operational fund,” dropped from $21.8 million in June to just $3.4 million.
The numbers show that the district is now projected to fail to meet both its own policy of maintaining a 3 percent reserve fund and the state mandate of maintaining a 2 percent reserve fund by next June.
Currently, OUSD is outspending its revenues by about $4 million every month, Grant-Dawson said.
“The District will need to make some very difficult choices in the near future to remain financially solvent.”
Lisa Grant-Dawson, OUSD chief business officer
“The District will need to make some very difficult choices in the near future to remain financially solvent,” she said.
The Board of Education will discuss budget strategies at its meetings on Sept. 24 and Oct. 8 and the board’s Budget and Finance Committee will take up the issue at its Oct. 2 meeting.
The district’s budget process begins in earnest in October and runs through December.
The bad financial news comes on the heels of a major milestone in the district’s history — it was able to emerge from more than 20 years of state control in June.
In 2003, OUSD descended into fiscal insolvency and needed an emergency $100 million loan from the state, which then sent in state-appointed administrators to run the district instead of school board-appointed superintendents.
In 2009, the district was allowed to appoint superintendents but remained under state fiscal oversight until the final payments on the loan were made this year.
If OUSD fails to get a handle on its projected deficits — $78 million in 2026-27 and $72 million the following fiscal year — it could again wind up in state receivership.
The post OUSD’s budget worse off than once thought; cash reserve plummets as deficits deepen appeared first on Local News Matters.