Riverside Unified Candidates Discuss Declining Enrollment, Measure O at Community Forum

The three Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) Board of Education candidates discussed districtwide issues like declining enrollment and Measure O bond spending at a forum put on last week by a local neighborhood group.

The Mission Grove Neighborhood Alliance, a community organization that advocates for residents living in a neighborhood split between Ward 2 and 4, held a candidate forum October 7 at the Orange Terrace Community Center.

The group invited several local political hopefuls to speak at the forum, including the three RUSD Trustee Area 1 candidates on the ballot for the November 3 general election. Incumbent Trustee Noemi Hernandez Alexander, retired superintendent Jinane Annous and local business owner Duffy Atkinson are running for the seat.

The Trustee Area 5 seat is also up for election, but it will not be on the ballot since incumbent Brent Lee was unopposed. 

The winning candidate would represent Riverside Unified’s southernmost neighborhoods, including the unincorporated community of Woodcrest and parts of the Victoria neighborhood nearest to Riverside Polytechnic High School. Campuses in the trustee area include Woodcrest Elementary School, Amelia Earhart Middle School and Martin Luther King High School. 

Hernandez Alexander and Atkinson previously ran against each other in 2022. In that election, Hernandez Alexander received 37% of the vote, while Atkinson came in second with 29%. 

This is Annous’ first time running for the Trustee Area 1 seat, after working in public education for 39 years and serving on her local Homeowners Association board for several terms. 

Declining Enrollment and Annual Budget

Atkinson and Annous both said they would make student success their top priority in response to the moderator’s question about their plans to deal with budget cuts as enrollment is expected to continue declining over the next few years.

Annous said she would request a complete audit and cut any services that seem repetitive, but don’t directly impact students, if elected to the seat.

“Whatever services that do not impact the classroom or the families after school, before school, [special education], [English learners], all these subgroups,” Annous said. “This is where I will stay away from impacting.”

Atkinson said he believes the district is headed toward a fiscal cliff but, as an outsider without all of the data, he conceded he was not fully aware of the district’s budgetary issues.

“As we look at seven-year, five-year forward projections, we are looking at a very serious problem, and it will impact our students,” he said. “So we have to take a hard look and make sure that the monies that we’re being entrusted [with] now are being used the most efficiently.”

Hernandez Alexander pushed back on the question’s premise, adding that the district was in good financial health and that declining enrollment projections should not scare residents. She added that much of the “deficit spending” has been from using one-time grants that needed to be spent. 

“We are in a good position,” she said. “Most districts are, by law, reserving 4% [of total funds]. We reserve 12%. We are in a good financial position.”

Rob Murrary, director of demographics at King Consulting, told the RUSD Board of Education during the December 18 public meeting that enrollment was projected to decrease districtwide by about 2,000 students in the next five years. 

RUSD’s Director of Business Services Nickie Hoff, during the Board’s June 4 meeting, said the declining enrollment projections could result in future staff reductions. However, some of those reductions could be offset, she added, if RUSD’s special education student population continued to grow, which could require the district to hire additional staff. 

During the June 4 meeting, Hoff also said the district was expected to receive $816 million and spend $846 million. That roughly $30 million difference would be covered by both a pool of one-time grant money that the district is supposed to spend down and unrestricted reserves. 

At the Board’s June 25 meeting, Hoff said this fiscal year was the last time the district is expected to pull from its unrestricted reserves and spend at a deficit. Additionally, the district is expected to have $151 million in its unrestricted ending balance at the end of this fiscal year.

Measure O bond spending

The moderator then asked about Measure O, a $392 million bond measure voters approved in 2016, and whether it was justified to allocate half the money to just two schools.

Hernandez Alexander again took issue with the question’s premise, stating that bond money had been distributed across every campus.

“Not everybody’s going to get the same thing,” Hernandez Alexander said. “But every school has been impacted, and we have been diligent, and we have been responsible.”

Annous said that, as a professor who supervises student teachers at RUSD, she has been able to see how many of the campuses have been modernized in recent years. 

“Before we judge, I think that we need to have a better look and get the truth and look at how the money is being spent,” Annous said.  “If I’m elected, I will look at that and will make it very public for everybody to see it, so people will not have the wrong idea about how the money is being spent.”

Atkinson said that, although project funding is more complex than the moderator’s question, the argument could be made that the district did not prioritize bond money allocation as promised to the voters in 2016. 

“The public knows that the bond management was a little shaky, and an argument can be made that it could have been done better,” Atkinson said. 

The board, at its August 27 meeting, said it would be more transparent with the public on how it plans to spend bond money after it reviewed a state audit report on the now-shelved STEM academy expansion project. 

A June California State Auditor’s report, ordered by State Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) last year in response to concerns from community members, found the district had used the money appropriately but missed key opportunities to be more transparent about its use. 

A website created by the district also shows Measure O funds were used for projects across 18 of its campuses. The site also shows bond money going toward the construction of a new elementary school within the Eastside neighborhood.