Earlier this month, the Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) Board of Education unanimously approved a plan that includes $19 million in revenue enhancements and nearly $28 million in cost cutting measures that includes the reduction of 197 staff members.
“It’s hitting our classified staff, our confidential staff, our certificated staff and our management staff, so, as your superintendent, this is not easy,” CVUSD Superintendent Frances Esparza said at the Dec. 13 meeting. “I need to put students first. I need to make sure that the students, again, have a teacher in the classroom and have the necessary materials to be able to thrive.”
The plan includes transferring $13 million in redevelopment agency fund to the general fund, aligning $6 million in unrestricted and restricted expenditures in order to maximize the amount of unrestricted funds, reducing its contract with the Riverside County Latino Commission by $3 million, cutting classified and certificated management departments by 25%, shortening the year-round schedule for principals and vice principals from 12 months to 11; closing eight vacant staff positions and eliminating 197 jobs.
The board’s decision came a month after Riverside County Office of Education Chief Business Official Scott Price told the board, in no uncertain terms, that the district was in real danger of a state takeover, which happens when a district runs out of money. Esparza said the district was operating with a $40 million deficit for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
“If reductions aren’t made, you will have the possibility of running out of cash mid 2025-26 and requiring a state loan,” Price said at the Nov. 14 meeting.
Debi Deal, a consultant who has been working with the district since last fall, said in an interview with The Record that in a state takeover, superintendents lose their jobs, the board of education loses its ability to make decisions and the takeover does not officially end until the state loan is paid back in full and the district is determined to be fiscally stable.
“Inglewood [Unified School District] went over to state control somewhere around 2012,” she said. “I was on that team at that time, and they have not recovered. I think there were somewhere around 18,000 kids [enrolled], and there’s 6000 now.”
The state previously took control of CVUSD in 1992, according to the California Department of Education. The district remained under state control until 2001 when it paid the state back $9,271,830 — $7,300,000 in principal and the remainder in interest.
“I was elected once after the board had gone through this. I came in after the fact,” Board President Joey Acuña Jr. said at the Dec. 13 meeting. “You have no idea how bad it is. You have no idea what they can do and how they can do it. You do not have an idea, so we either take the pain now or take more pain later.”
And while for many, the district’s financial situation came as a shock, Deal said this is something that the district has been aware of and has presented to the board a number of times in the last year.
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“I don’t think that it got anybody’s attention at the time, but I think Dr. Price had come to the mic and had said, ‘You need to make these cuts,’” she said. “The public documents are very clear that the county office was saying, ‘We need to see a fiscal stabilization plan.’ This goes back a whole year.”
Deal was originally brought in to work with the district’s new budget staff to get them up to speed before the first interim budget report was due in December 2023. From her vantage point, she said there were “multiple failures” responsible for putting the district in this position.
“The board authorized layoffs that didn’t materialize,” she said. “The [chief budget officer] was using inflated cost of living factors.
“The district, and I’m going to say the district, because the cabinet at that time did not react with a plan on what they were going to do with these ongoing positions and other expenses [paid] with one-time money,” she continued. “So I think when you put that all together, that really does tell you the story of what happened.”
As for how the district will need to move forward, both Deal and Interim Assistant Superintendent of Fiscal Services Daniela Tabarez said transparency would be key.
“I think moving forward, it’s important that the district remains transparent, even in those times where difficult decisions need to be made, because this is just the beginning,” Tabarez said in an interview with The Record. “Unfortunately, more difficult decisions will have to be made, and I think it’s important to keep everyone informed as we move along in the process.”
Come January, Esparza said district staff would come back to the board with more recommendations, including an immediate hiring freeze.
“This is [just] the first piece,” she said. “This fiscal stabilization plan is required to be part of our first interim, but what we are bringing you in January is what we feel the district needs in order to right-size and make sure the [future] years are not a catastrophe.”
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