San Francisco Unified School District Says Cuts of 500+ Jobs Needed to Close $113M Budget Deficit

A new plan by San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Maria Su to eliminate 535 jobs to help eliminate $113 million in spending was met by a mixed reaction on Wednesday in the city.

The SFUSD has been in financial distress since the 2010’s, dating back well before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in the last three years, the situation became even more dire, with the deficit growing to well over $100 million in the red. In June 2022, Matt Wayne took over the SFUSD as it was still transitioning back from COVID restrictions and was still continuing to grow a massive deficit. During his 26 month tenure, the situation grew worse, with the SFUSD deficit climbing to $421 million, the District slashing 927 vacant positions, and a growing number of cutbacks. All the while, school closures became an increasing probability, with the District finally announcing in March that some closures would be happening in 2025.

However, things reached a crisis point in May 2024 when the California Department of Education announced that they would be sending fiscal advisors to look over some financial decisions by the district, essentially taking control of district spending. With no way to swiftly confront the $421 million deficit issue, the SFUSD soon began paring down the schools. In October, the long dreaded news came, with a proposed plan for the 2025-2026 school year that would close three schools, have eight merged into others, and have two becoming a welcoming school for closed schools. In addition, over 500 teaching jobs were to be cut, with another $113 million to be cut out of the school budget.

Then-Mayor London Breed, responding to public outcry, tried to halt the closure plan shortly after the announcement. As a result, the school closing plan was scrapped, Wayne resigned, Su was brought in as the new Superintendent, and the SFUSD was left with almost no other options on how to reduce spending besides layoffs. Last month Su confirmed that 535 employees would need to let go, as staffing took up a whopping 80% of the SFUSD budget.

“We are going to put in front of you in a few short months a list of people that are our colleagues, our friends, our neighbors, our kid’s favorite teacher,” said Su in January to the school board. “It is going to be awful. Eighty percent of our budget goes toward staff. It means we have no choice but to reduce our workforce.”

In addition, state advisor Elliott Duchon added that while positions that are required by California, including principals, clerks, and teachers, would likely be safe, other positions would not. These include teacher aides, social workers, assistant principals, and school counselors.

“The hard part about this is you are used to a lot of resources at your schools,” explained Duchon to the board following several angry statements by board members. “Social workers are wonderful, but they are not generally part of the school allocation.”

On Tuesday, a plan was finally outlined, with 535 positions confirmed to be eliminated and no school closures being set. In order to have a balanced budget by the deadline in June for the 2025-2026 school year, a total of $113 million must be made up.

Closing the budget gap

According to Su, employees on consultant contract and administrators will be first to be cut, followed by other ancillary positions like counselors and assistant principals.

“The cuts are going to come from all areas of the district,“ said Su on Tuesday. “What I want to do is keep those cuts as far away from the students as possible. The budget is first and foremost aimed at keeping the lights on. We are, at this moment in time, facing a very large deficit. The $113 million gap that must be closed represents 10% of our budget, and it requires us to make really difficult decisions.”

“We are in the process right now of closing $113 million deficit for next year,” SFUSD spokeswoman Laura Dudnick. “We are looking at all our spending throughout the district to make sure that we can submit a balanced budget by June. We will likely have to issue layoffs down the road and there is a process that we go through to make sure that we follow state law for that. It’s a process that all school districts in California follow.”

The reaction to the cuts was polarizing, with many in the either praising or denouncing the cuts on Wednesday. Teachers unions, expectedly, came out strongly against the cuts.

“They are talking about keeping the lights on, but what about social workers, what about counselors, nurses, and even assistant principals – all these folks who relate to our children beyond our teachers,” explained executive vice president of United Educators of San Francisco Frank Lara. “The biggest concern our members are entering tonight is the fact that there is so little transparency around what is actually happening with the school district’s budget.”

However, many others took a more nuanced view of it.

“This is how ridiculous it is,” said Therese St. John, a parent group leader at one of the schools in the district to the Globe on Wednesday. “We want the district to meet the budget while not closing any schools or lay off anybody despite lower enrollment and the massive deficit. Like, what other options are there? Get corporate sponsorship?

“These cuts are necessary. Painful, but necessary. Personally, selling some of the schools and making them into affordable housing or something like that could have solved several problems at once, but they have their reasons. They aren’t good, but they have them.”

“[San Francisco Mayor Daniel] Lurie’s response should be interesting,” added political advisor Sharon Lee. “Breed fought hard against any sort of school closures and pretty much delayed this entire thing until after election. Well, it’s after the election and there is no fix. Superman isn’t coming to save the day, and no tech billionaire has written a check to the District. So we have cuts.

“We’re also a smaller school district now, but no city leader ever has ever wanted to admit that their city is shrinking and wants to sell off schools they don’t need. We’re not in a good place.”