SDUHSD Approves 2025-26 Budget and three-year projection showing continued financial stress
Board Approves New Collective Bargaining Agreements for Teachers and Classified Staff
Restroom Safety Discussed with No Action Taken
The Board of Trustees of SDUHSD held two regular board meetings during June 2025, and this report covers both meetings.
SDUHSD Approves 2025-26 Budget and three-year projection showing continued financial stress
District staff presented the required multi-year budget forecast for the 2024/25, 2025/26, and 2026/27 school years. The approved budget shows deficit spending in the first two years, with a small surplus in the third year in our unrestricted funding accounts. The budget surplus/deficit and unrestricted reserves percentage are shown in the following table.
Budget Surplus Unrestricted
(Deficit) Reserves % (*)
2025/26 ($3.16m) 8.3%
2026/27 ($1.62m) 7.4%
2027/28 $0.25m 7.3%
* Unrestricted Reserves % is the total of our statutory required minimum reserves plus our Basic Aid Reserve, as a percentage of our projected annual expenditures.
SDUHSD is a Basic Aid district, meaning that we rely primarily on local property taxes, which makes our revenue highly sensitive to real estate market fluctuations. That is why our Board has a reserve target of 18% of annual expenditures, well above the state minimum of 3%. Unfortunately, this budget projects our reserves to be well below our target and trending in the wrong direction, which increases our risk in an economic downturn.
Board Approves New Collective Bargaining Agreements for Teachers and Classified Staff
The Board approved new three-year labor agreements with both of our employee unions — the San Dieguito Faculty Association Teachers Union (SDFA) and the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Classified Staff Union. These agreements include:
An increase in our salary table of 1%, which gives most employees a salary increase of between 3%–6% in salary, retroactive to July 1, 2024. As a reminder, employee salaries generally increase automatically by 2% and 5% every year based on seniority (called the “step and column increase”), and we provided an additional 1% on top of those automatic increases.
Additional increases of similar size for the 2025/26 school year
Increased health benefits and pension contributions
I support fair, market-based compensation, but I voted against approving these agreements for three reasons:
We are running budget deficits and are below our reserve targets. Adding ongoing costs will make it harder to return to fiscal stability.
The SDFA agreement includes a clause requiring SDUHSD to be the highest-paid district in the county. That clause was triggered last year by a raise in the Grossmont Union High School District, forcing us to give raises we did not plan on providing. I believe we should have negotiated that clause out.
The public did not receive a clear financial disclosure of the impact of these agreements. The San Diego County Office of Education uses a disclosure form that fails to show total compensation changes before and after the agreement as required by California law. I intend to pursue reforms to ensure improved transparency in the future.
After the district approved a new contract with the CSEA that included pay raises for the last school year, the CSEA immediately "sunshined" a new proposal that asks for additional pay raises for this upcoming school year. Any increases will add to our projected fiscal deficits.
Restroom Safety Discussed with No Action Taken
After I asked to add restroom safety to our board agenda at each of the last three meetings, it was finally added to the agenda for the June 18th board meeting. Unfortunately, it was added as an “information only” item which, by law, prevents us from making any decisions or providing any direction to the Superintendent. I have some ideas for increasing adult supervision in the high school restrooms and deterring misbehavior, but by law we could not vote on anything due to the item being labeled as an “information only” item instead of using the label “for potential action”.
In contrast, the June 18th agenda did contain, for potential action by the board, a modification to one of our Board Bylaws, BB9323. This Bylaw relates to when a Board Trustee can ask that an item be placed on a board agenda. When a member of the public spoke at one of our board meetings and described how her son was attacked in a school bathroom, after she finished speaking, I asked that bathroom safety be added to the agenda for the next board meeting. The proposed changes to this Bylaw would prevent a Board Trustee from making such a request during this part of the meeting and would instead require the Trustee to wait until the end of the meeting to make this request. I don’t think this is respectful to the public, who may then have to wait until the end of the meeting to see if the Board will discuss their item at a future meeting.
More importantly, California’s open meeting law, called the Brown Act, specifically allows for a Trustee to make a comment after a public speaker completes their remarks, with the only restriction being that the comment be brief and that the Board cannot engage in a substantive discussion or act on anything not on the published agenda. School District Board Bylaws cannot override California laws.
After a spirited discussion, the Board ultimately decided to “table” this item, which means to do nothing now. This item may or may not come back at a future meeting. If you would like to see this discussion, it begins at 2:17:00 in this video. https://www.youtube.com/live/DjEvxbjIRjA
Finally, I would like to congratulate all our graduating high school seniors and our 8th grade students who have completed middle school and are moving on to high school. I wish each of you continued success and growth in your educational journey, and to everyone else a happy summer break!
The next SDUHSD board meeting is scheduled for August 8, 2025.