OUSD Board Of Education

Welcome to the June 24 meeting of the Oakland Unified Board of Education, our last meeting of the year. Mister Rakeshtar, can we have a roll call to establish quorum?

Yes. On the attendance roll call, student director Simmons, student director Smith, director Lada?

Present.

Director Williams? Present, sir. Director Hutchinson, director Berry, director Thompson, vice president Bachelor.

Here.

And president Brohard.

Here.

Quorum president.

Thank you. Mister Well, Hollis, can we have a interpretation check, please?

Yes, madam president. For tonight's meeting, we have three languages available for live interpretation. They are Cantonese, Arabic, and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature available on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. With that, we will start with, we will start with live interpretation.

We will start with Cantonese. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Cantonese. And I'll ask, miss Hope if she could come off mute and give the interpretation announcement for Cantonese.

Cantonese announcement is done, mister Hollis.

Thank you, miss Ho. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Cantonese interpretation at this time. Moving forward to the next language, which is Arabic, I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Arabic.

And I will ask miss Abdi if she can come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Arabic.

Thank

you, miss Abdi. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to the next language, is Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom.

Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Spanish. And I will ask miss Alejandra, if she can come off of mute, and give the interpretation announcement for Spanish.

Spanish interpretation announcement is done.

Thank you, miss Walker Marquez. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with any interpretation at this time. That concludes the first interpretation announcement for this evening. We will have more interpretation announcements as the meeting goes on, and I will pass it back to you, madam president.

Thank you. Tonight in closed session, the board will discuss the following matters. Under labor matters d one twenty five dash eighteen sixty four, conference with labor negotiators. D two, twenty three dash twenty four ninety one, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation. D three twenty six dash fifteen fifty four, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation.

Under pupil matters, d four, twenty one dash twenty five ninety six, readmission student f. D five, twenty five dash zero seven two four, readmission student q. D six, twenty five dash twenty six thirty five, readmission student y. D seven twenty five dash twenty eight forty four, readmission student f f. Under real property matters, item d eight twenty five dash fifteen seventy nine, conference with real property negotiator negotiators.

Sorry. The board will reconvene to public session at 05:30. Mister Sechow, are

there any public comments on closed session items? Yes. We have one registered speaker, Carrie Kaufman.

Okay. Two minutes, please.

Hello? Alright. Hello, board. Thank you so much for the time. Carrie Kaufman, president of the United Administrators for Oakland Schools.

I know you're about to go into closed session, and I implore you to make a decision to allow for us to bargain. We have not been able to get any responses because there has been no money authorized at the table. It feels like bargaining is in bad faith. We are here. We're ready to bargain.

We're ready to bargain all summer. We have not gotten any responses. We would like the board to authorize the district to respond to our our requests, and we haven't heard anything. We cannot start the school year with assistant principals and principals making less yearly than teachers, not hourly or daily, yearly. We cannot start the year with supervisors making less than supervisors yearly and still working twenty, thirty more days.

We need this resolved. We need this resolved now. Please authorize the district to bargain. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any online comments?

No. That concludes public speakers.

K. With that, the board will go into closed session and reconvene at I'd like to welcome everyone to the, board of education meeting for September for June 24. Sorry. Moving through the summer there. Mister Rakestar, can we have a roll call to establish quorum, please?

Yes. On the roll call to establish quorum, student director Simmons. Student director Smith.

Here.

K. Director Lauder?

Present.

Director Williams? Present, sir. Director Hutchinson? Director Barry?

Present.

Director Thompson? Vice President Bachelor?

Here.

And President Burghard? Here. Forum present.

Thank you. Mister Hollis, can we have a interpretation check, please?

Yes, madam president. For tonight's meeting, we have three languages available for live interpretation. They are Cantonese, Arabic, and Spanish. We also have a translation closed caption feature on Zoom that you can use by clicking the closed caption icon on your Zoom taskbar. With that, we will move on to announcements for live interpretation.

We will start with Cantonese. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom. Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Cantonese. And I will ask mister Yuan if he can come off the mute and give the interpretation announcement for Cantonese.

Can this announcement, mister Harris?

Thank you, mister Yuen. Checking the attendees on Zoom to see if there's any hands raised for Cantonese interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Cantonese interpretation at this time. Moving forward to the next language, which is Arabic. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom.

Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Arabic. And I will ask mister Tarek if you can come off of mute and get the interpretation announcement for Arabic.

Thank you.

Thank

you, mister Tarek. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Arabic interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with Arabic interpretation at this time. Moving forward to our last language, is Spanish. I will lower all attendees' hands on Zoom.

Please only raise your hand if you need the language being announced at this time, which is Spanish. And I will ask miss Walker Marquez if she can come off of mute and give the interpretation announcement for Spanish.

Yes. Of course.

Thank you, miss Walker Marquez. Checking the attendees to see if there's any hands raised for Spanish interpretation. Seeing no hands, we will not start with any interpretation at this time. That concludes the second interpretation announcement for this evening, and I pass it back to you, madam president.

Thank you. At tonight's meeting, there are several allotted times where you may make public comments provided you preregistered to speak online before the meeting started or if you fill out a comment card, which you can find on the table by the entrance. You can submit those cards at any time. Speaking will happen after closed session item, which was completed earlier, adoption of the pupil discipline consent report, public comment on all non agenda items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. Special orders of the day, there are four items, the district's twenty twenty five twenty six annual California School Dashboard Local Performance Indicators Report, the 2024, 2027 Local Control and Accountability Plan, Financial Stabilization Implementation Plan, Progress Update and Path, twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven fiscal year district budget, all funds.

There will be public speaking after new business, five items, board policy five one three one point eight, students' mobile communications cell phones, application for provisional internship, application for variable term waiver, amendment four, measure y spending plan, request for I'm sorry. Adoption of the general consent report and superintendent's report. Please be aware that in compliance with the Brown Act, board members may not respond to comments regarding issues that are not on our posted agenda for tonight. I ask all speakers to keep their comments to the scope of the item. If a speaker speaks to a different item, the chair will need to ask that that speaker either speak to a specific item or hold their comments until the appropriate public comment period.

I would ask my fellow board members to help and support me in this regard. If you don't get a chance to speak during public comment, I want to encourage you to use the e comments feature on the legislative information center on the OUSD website. And, of course, you can also email board members directly using this format, firstname.lastname@ousd.org. Report out of closed session items for 06/24/2026. Labor matters on item d one number 25 dash eighteen sixty four, conference with labor negotiators, the board discussed this matter.

Under legal matters under item d two number 23 dash twenty four ninety one, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, the board approved the settlement in this matter. Motion by president Burhard, second by director Lotta. Vote of four to four in favor, zero abstained, and three absent. President Brohard, yes. Vice President Bachelor, yes.

Director Barry, absent. Director Hutchinson, absent. Director Lada yes. Director Thompson yes. And Director Williams yes.

Oh, sorry. I said absent, sorry. Director Thompson is absent. On item d three twenty six dash fifteen fifty four, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation. The board approved the settlement in this matter.

Motion by president Brohard, second by director Lotta. Four in favor, zero abstained, and three absent. President Brohard, yes. Vice president Bachelor, yes. Director Barry, absent.

Director Hutchinson, absent. Director Lotta, yes. Director Thompson, absent, and Director Williams, yes. On pupil matters, items d four through d seven, the board heard these matters and will vote on the matters in public in section one on the in section I on the agenda. Under real property matters, item d eight, number 26 dash fifteen seventy nine, conference with real property negotiators, the board did not take up this matter.

That is the end of the 06/24/2026 closed session report out. Next on the agenda, we have any modifications to the agenda. And I understand we wanna withdraw item q five. Are there any other modifications to the agenda?

Apologies. Okay. I would like to withdraw q five Yeah. For consideration at a further time. Okay.

It's a withdrawal for consideration at a future time.

Director Williams?

Yes. I'd like to, pull, nine ten and, pull 2728. We need an alpha, please.

Yeah. Oh,

R910 and R27And28. Also like to pull R250

and like to pull

R70 r 73 through r 78, r 60 one through r 69. They're all packaged, very similar items, so they're all packaged together. No. In each block, 61 to 69, I will consider those as

a

package. Seventy seventy three through 78 is a package. They're all about furniture. Two fifty is separate. Twenty seven and twenty eight is together.

Nine and ten are together.

I'll make sure. R nine and ten together, r twenty seven and twenty eight together, are 70 Correct. Are 73 through 78 together. Whoops. R 61 through 69 together.

Yeah.

I I heard that ma'am, ma'am, just wanna confirm. So 70 and 20 and 250 are standalones?

Yes.

Okay. Let me

So let me just read it back to you and make sure I got it. Okay?

Yes.

Are 9 and 10 together? Are 27 and 28 together? Are 61 through 69 together, are 70 separate.

No. 70 is included.

In what?

70 through 70

77 so it's 70

Through.

Or is this

Oh, okay. I'm myself. Okay. 61 through 70. That's what I'm looking at.

61 through 70.

Okay.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's all transportation.

Okay. R73 through 78?

Correct. Furniture.

And R250? Correct. Okay. Got them all. Alright.

Any other modifications to the agenda? Director Hutchinson.

Yes. Hopefully, when we get to, the consent report, if not now, there can be a ruling on the many items that still don't have a proper fiscal impact analysis included. I don't need to pull all of them now, but I'll be asking for that ruling later. So I wanted to pull r one, r two, r 62, r 84, r 94, 94, r one thirteen, r one fifteen, r one twenty two, r 126 oh, I'm sorry, 226, r two thirty nine, r two forty seven, r two forty eight, r two forty nine, and r two fifty. And and and and next time for an agenda, when I get an agenda, not even sent to me but posted publicly seventy two and a half hours before the meeting, and there's 262 items in the consent report Besides having a full budget, an LCAP plan, and other measures, it is impossible to be able to do this in the right way.

So that's why now I'm forced to pull all of these items. Thank you.

Ask you a clarifying question. Director Williams also pulled two fifty. Can any of the two forty seven, 248249 be taken with 250?

No. Okay.

247 is the OEACB A. How can that be included with something else? And I'm surprised nobody else pulled that.

So I just wanna read off what I have from you. R1R2R84.

R62.

Oh, that's already been pulled. Sorry.

Okay. Thank you. So I'm sorry. Then, yes.

R84. Yeah. R94, R113, R115, R122, R226, R239, and R24748, and 49. Fifty's already been pulled. Right.

Thank you.

Okay. Thanks. Are there any other modifications to the agenda? K. With that, we will go on to item I, which is the adoption of the people consent report.

Is there a motion to adopt? So moved. Second. And public comment.

Yes. We have two registered speakers, Sheila Haynes and Asado Labala.

K. We'll take miss Asada first and then take, miss Sheila. This is the pupil Pupil report. Yeah. Did I?

I'm sorry. Oh, it's the pupil discipline consent report. I'll be clear.

Alright. So at this point, you are engaging and determining whether or not students who had been expelled from the district now can be readmitted back into you're not saying if they're coming back into the district, are they gonna be in alternative programs, are they going back to their regular schools, are they going to get moved to other school districts? Because you have that option. So in your decision making process, is that part of it? Or does that fall on the the superintendent or some other administrative person.

You you don't have to answer me. These are questions that you're not obligated to answer me, so I have no problem with that. But that is what you should be doing. You should be reviewing the, remediation plan. I might not be saying the word correct, but a plan for them to be engaged in, not only their academic, pursuits, but as far as their if it was behavior related, how during the course of the expulsion, the behavior actions were in place to correct and to guarantee no other problems would be coming forth.

So I don't know how y'all do that in that short period of time you're up there, Where you sit down and discuss each child, plus your lawsuits, plus all the other things you're dealing with, how you actually give the attention to and take the responsibility that these young people coming back into our district are adequately prepared to come back, and we have in place what's necessary for them to be be their best performances and deal with their issues that caused them to be expelled in the first place. I don't know if that's happening. And at some point, superintendent, we need to get a report on how that process works for expulsion as well as how two students are guaranteed. And I hope we don't lose these students, but I don't know if that's that's being considered at all.

Thank you. Miss Haynes?

I do not see miss Haynes' hands. Therefore, that include public speakers.

Mister Registar, can we take a roll call on the motion, please?

On the motion to adopt the, pupil discipline consent report, student directors are accused. Director Lauder?

Yes.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson?

Abstain.

Director Barry? Yes. Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

And president Brohard? Yes. Motion's adopted.

K. Next on the agenda, we have public comment on all non agenda items, excuse me, within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. How many do we have public speakers?

We have six speakers.

And do we have any online?

Currently checking online. We do not have any online.

Okay. Two minutes each.

For the speakers, for public comment on non agenda items, Carol Delton, Sheila Haynes, Lisa Spielman, Mario Capitelli, Asado Lobala, and Leanna Powell. Those are the six speakers.

If you heard your name called, if you could approach the dais please.

Good evening. I am Lisa Spielman. For thirty five years, I have been a history teacher, a teacher leader, and since 2019, I have been the leader of strategic resource planning. I built systems to eliminate $5,000,000 in federal grant cost penalties. But equally important, I'm a lifelong believer in the power and necessity of high quality public education.

I am shattered that as of July 1, I am leaving. I want to tell you why. Our responsibility is not only to cultivate knowledge, but also to teach young people the vital skill of how to think in our highly diverse and complex world through critical thinking skills and civil discourse. OUSD is failing at this, and OUSD has failed me personally as an educator and as a Jewish employee. I am leaving because there is a culture of discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students and staff.

I am leaving because the district's negligible response to the lawsuit was a professional development where some staff members turned the training against Jewish and Israeli staff. In this Equity First District, no leader intervened. No one sought to stop the bullying even though we'd all agree equity does not allow for bullying. I filed a uniform complaint, and there has been no response. By my count, a 100 Jewish students have either left the district or chosen not to enroll.

In November 2023, I formed a support group for Jewish staff who continue to be traumatized by the hostility at school sites. I am the seventh Jewish staff member to leave. If we were people of a different minority group, OUSD would bend over backwards to remediate the problems and repair the harm. In OUSD, though, Jews don't count. My departing wish for Oakland Unified is a commitment to two priorities.

OUSD must build a culture where every single community is equally protected, valued, and welcomed, including our Jewish students and staff, and for all OUSD staff to be held to high standards, teaching students how to think, not what to think, and a modeling respect for all identities and opinions. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Well, I'm staying. I'm staying, and I will never give up never give up of pursuing the issues that impact African Americans in this district. I've gotten little results at this podium or at city hall related to African Americans. The fact that African American students are not achieving I just saw the the student plan for McClyman's. 80% of the students that are there are over 70% are are is the population of African Americans, but 80% of them are reading three grade levels below where they should be.

I'm staying in in spite of the fact that the majority of the students who are suspended and expelled are African Americans. I'm staying in spite of the fact that you give more money to newcomers and no money you give more money to newcomers and very little money to any programs. In spite of the fact that you took away the African American studies and replaced it with ethnic studies. In fact, in spite of the fact that McClymond's high school just started that when you were supposed to start a year ago, and you haven't remediated the soil. In spite of the fact that when a teacher came from Fremont and talked about the anti blackness going on at the school, they lost their job.

But when a Jewish person comes here and a teacher, there's no retaliation against them losing their job. In spite of the fact that we are 70% of the homeless in this city, we got 10% unemployment, we have the highest rate of foreclosures, the highest rate of people losing their homes. We have the highest rate of people who are dealing with suicide. Listen to this one. Just came out last week.

The highest number of suicides for boys, black boys, or the highest number between 16 and twenty four committing suicide, higher than white boys. I'm staying, and I'll stay until something changes. I'm 81 years old, and I'm gonna stay until something changes. I was at city hall. She knows I was at city hall beating up on black people that's not doing what they're supposed to be doing.

The NAACP came here and sat with the Jewish community. They never come here and sit with me about black issues. So I'll be back. I'll never leave.

Thank you, miss Isada. Next speaker, please.

Hello. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Liana Powell. I'm a District 6 resident. I'm a parent.

I have two littles over there as well as my husband. I have an an adult child who also was a OUSD student. My kids currently attend Burkhalter, and we've been very lucky to find that school and the community that we have found there. However, with I know this is later on, but I I wanna make sure that I can get this out because I I do have a special needs kid over here who I don't know how long will be able to stay. So, it it's it's in regards to, the the contract for teachers.

I often call IEP meetings. I feel pretty confident in doing that. However, when there are other issues and resources that I wanna bring to the school and for my principal to share with other families who may not, you know, have, you know, all the words or, the knowledge to fight for their children. I learned that my principal will not be meeting with her teachers as of next year. And for me, I rely on my principal being able to speak to her, her teachers as a manager of the school.

So I I know this is later on in the agenda. I don't know that I'll be here till 11:45, but I just for, the non agenda items, I wanted to just bring forward that I do not agree with that part of the contract in terms I want my teachers to be paid. I do. However, agreeing for teachers in elementary to not have to meet with their principal is completely ridiculous to me. Their safety depends on it.

Today, I'm a little late because there was an incident at my kid's school where a person was walking past taking pictures of the kids. They're outside. It's hot. They have on shorts. Some guys up there taking photos.

I worry about their safety. And so when I go to the principal with concerns, I expect her to be able to have time to

meet with

the teachers.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

All the speakers name were called. All Cassie speakers coming up.

They were called.

Good evening, board. I'm speaking very much as an individual. You usually hear me comment on the budget. But if you know me well, you would know it was probably inevitable that at some point in a meeting, I would be talking about the Talmud. I brought some stickers and I wanna offer them tonight to president Brohard.

They remind me of two kinds of flowers. The Babylonian Talmud speaks of an exceptionally beautiful flower growing in the land of Israel. It's called the kalanita or little bride, and in modern Hebrew, the kalanit. It grows in many colors in the North, but the red flower grows specifically in the South close to the area that was destroyed on October 7. And survivors of that attack look at it as a symbol of their resilience and return.

The Talmudic discussion focus on the importance of distinguishing the seeds of the colonnite, which are not edible from other seeds which are. But these sketches could also be taken for the poppy, pear egg, botanically unrelated and producing delicious seeds. Recognized first by the Greeks for their healing properties, it comes from colder climate and grows in many areas of the world, except not in that particular area, the Southern The Negev. The poppy has also been adopted as a flower of remembrance and hope by Americans, Canadians, British, and also by Palestinians as a flower of solidarity and endurance. I've heard several recent speakers, including myself, express what we feel when we see the only country that some of our families had or have access to erased, as we do at each board meeting when the president opens her laptop.

So this is what I offer as a compromise, to cover the land with flowers. This is my suggestion and only mine. Thank you for considering it.

Mario Capitelli, employee, parent, taxpayer. Last week's facilities meeting represented two labor violations and four Brown Act violations. Before we innovate our way out of planning and resource appropriation problems, we should make sure we've covered our bases and handled the basics. Those innovating our work right into a potential lawsuit and complaint aren't solving the most basic problems of their scopes of work, so please don't underthink the complexity of what ours is. I have delivered innovative solutions to document, broadcast, and stream every meeting since I arrived here seventeen years ago, allowing for less staffing, improved engagement and transparency, and improved working conditions all at the same time.

If you wanna talk innovation, let's talk about how we expand our capacity to tell stories, improve attendance and enrollment, employ youth, and provide proper coverage to all of our Brown Acted meetings. A proposal I've been asking for months to be heard that solves numerous problems for free to OUSD. That's the kind of innovative solution I'm ready to talk about. So if people want to really innovate, we're here. We're ready.

If you want to toss half baked, failed, problematic technologies for meetings where hundreds of millions of dollars are discussed and voted on that don't allow for public engagement, review, or transparency, I will respectfully pass.

Minister Sechow, that the last speaker?

Yes. That concludes public speakers.

Thank you. We'll move on to special orders of the day where we have a few items. So the first one we'll take up is K126Dash1167 a, which is the district's twenty five twenty six annual California School Dashboard Local Performance Indicator Report by our chief academic officer. I don't see her in person, superintendent. Who is gonna lead us through this presentation?

My understanding is Diana Sherman was gonna be making this presentation. There she is.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Diana Sherman. I am the coordinator of the local control local control and accountability plan. Tonight, we are here to do our annual presentation on the local indicators for the plan.

I think as we may remember from prior years, this is a required presentation under California Ed Code. And we present each year twice, once in the winter on mid year updates, and then once at the close of the year to let you know where we stand on some of our local indicators. Quick refresher, the state has a series of indicators that are used as part of the California School Dashboard. These also help determine differentiated assistance status for school districts, as well as individual school status on some of the comprehensive support improvement and targeted support and improvement metrics. These are our district level indicators that are used as part of the LCAP.

And so tonight we are here to talk about the five local indicators that are specific to OUSD, the six state indicators you can find on the California School Dashboard. First is our measure of basic conditions for student learning. And we talk about teacher miss assignments. 'twenty three, 'twenty four is the most recent year for which there is data available. It lags by a couple of years.

And at that point, we had forty four point eight percent of teachers miss assigned, which is a significantly higher number than in prior years. So just identifying that as a big change. Percentage of students and number of students without access to their own copies of standards aligned materials. This is part of what we are assessed on for Williams each year. And we were at zero percent, that is our target.

We'd like to be at 0%. All students have materials they need. And the number of identified instances where our facilities, meaning our school buildings, do not meet the good repair or the excellent repair status for the quality of the physical building, We have six this year, which includes both minor deficiencies and extreme deficiencies. My memory is that these are all buildings that were at fair, meaning that they are relatively minor deficiencies, but still they are not at good or excellent. And go through there.

Implementation standards. This is where we are on implementing our curriculum. And so I think over the last several years, we have made a lot of headway on adopting new curricula in a number of different areas. And so this is an area where we really have grown significantly. I think the first year that I began this presentation in 1920, a lot of these were twos and threes.

Four now is full implementation, and you see that across the board in all of these areas here. English language arts, English language development, mathematics, science, and history and social science. We are obviously looking to get to five eventually, which is our full implementation with sustainable long term plan to continue that implementation. But four is definitely a big piece of progress. This is implementation progress on some of our other focal areas.

You see we have a few still at three, health education and physical education, which continue to be areas of growth to get them up to full implementation. We also have our support for teachers administrators on identifying professional learning needs, meeting these needs for individual teachers, and providing support for teachers on standards. And so we still have some of these that are areas of growth as well. These are all on the upward trajectory, though, and so either they are the same as last year or they have grown from last year. Priority three is parent and family engagement.

This was a state priority that grew out of a lot of the deep work in Oakland, in part based on some of those relationships that were established. This is how we measure that. And so we look at the capacity of staff to build trusting and respectful relationships with families, how we create welcoming environments for all families, how we support staff to learn about families' strengths, cultures, languages, and goals for their children, and how we develop multiple opportunities for parents and the schools to engage in two way communication to make sure that families are involved in children's education. The first and the third of these areas are at full implementation. This is work held by the Office of Equity.

And then the second and the fourth are areas where we continue to develop that, and we are working on initial implementation not yet to full. Similarly, these are partnerships for student outcomes. These are also part of our work of parent and family engagement. The first two have to do with how we provide support to our teachers. The second is on how we provide support to families so that they understand what students are learning.

If you have a child in the school district, you undoubtedly get some of the emails, and you are invited to some of the sessions to try to educate parents around the types of assessments we use, the types of work we are covering, etcetera. So the first two, again, implementation, and the second are policies and programs that we are still working to develop and ensuring that families understand and are using their legal rights to advocate for their students. Those are both areas where we are still growing. Parent and family engagement input for decision making. This is the capacity of our families to be engaged in both the district level decisions and also in the site level decisions.

And again, we have some areas here that we are still developing, specifically how we really ensure that families are engaged in planning and designing and implementing family engagement. This is a work that has been a focus this spring at the district level. It's an ongoing focus at the school level to really ensure we are hearing from all families and not just a very small subset of those families. So that is an area we continue to grow. We do have a lot of opportunities existing and so that one is at full implementation there.

But again, it's how do we get engagement in those opportunities. Whoops. I think that was me. Priority six is school climate. We use the California Healthy Kids Survey in Oakland to measure this.

We look at the same questions year over year, and we ask those questions of students in grades five through 12. This year, we have current data because this survey had already closed at the time we prepared this. We had 25, 26, we administered it to all students in grades five through 12. We had about two thirds of students district wide participating, and 56 schools where at least 70% of students participated. We have, similar to past years, about half of students feeling connected to their schools.

And we do see the same trajectory that we have seen over time, which is that that percentage is much higher in elementary school. It drops off in middle school, and high school is the lowest. We also ask if students feel safe. This is up a little bit, I believe. But again, twothree of elementary school students report feeling safe, only half of our middle and high school students.

So we want to get those percentages up significantly. And then last, we have our broad course of study. This really looks at, are we offering a comprehensive set of courses at the high school level, and really secondary broadly? But specifically with our A to G offerings, looking at our graduate capstone work, our Linked Learning Pathways, do all students have access to those classes, and are they representing a broad array of offerings? And so this is work that we measure through a number of different metrics, particularly looking at electives, what elective students at different schools have, ensuring that they are available at all of our schools, ensuring we have ethnic studies in computer science across the district, and really measuring how students are enrolling in those courses.

And are students enrolling consistently across different student groups and across our focal areas. This is some of our status here. There's a lot of access to courses. We continue to work on ensuring that students are actually taking that access, and making sure that they really are enrolled in those classes, and seeking them out, and able to enroll if they're interested in them. We continue to have challenges around funding and staffing.

These are consistent across the district in terms of making sure that we can, particularly at our smaller secondary schools, offer all of the elective students are interested in taking. That is just a math game of trying to figure out how to ensure that we can have a fully enrolled class and still have the offering. And career technical education is another area that is an area of learning and growth for the high school network and the Linked Learning team as they figure out how to embed that in the graduate capstone and ensuring that that is really part of the integrated pathway work at high schools, and that work is continuing to grow. And then this is some of the strategies and actions for this year that you'll find in the LCAP. A to g, again, continuing our investment in career technical education.

You'll see many of the grants that are at the state level coming in, in the LCAP itself. Also our Linked Learning Pathways, and really looking at our underrepresented student groups, in particular our focal groups within the LCAP. Our foster youth accessing those courses, how do our English learners access those pathways, how do our low income students across the district have access. Ethnic studies is a relatively new requirement, I think, as you know. We are continuing to expand professional development for teachers and understanding how that will be taken up at our high schools.

And then multilingual education is an area of focus. That is our dual language programs, understanding how those are functioning, how they can be improved, how they are impacted by things like the downtick in the number of newcomers in the district, which sometimes has fed those programs in the upper grades, and really understanding that work. And that is the close.

Thank you. Are there public comments?

Yes, we have two registered speakers, Sheila Haynes and Osala Lovalla.

We'll take, miss Osala, please.

Wanna address the area of safety based on what's in your 250 something consent items. Hazardous material removal, environmental site assessment, geographical and geohazard consulting services, removal of contaminated asphalt, fire alarm replacements needed, disposal of contaminated soil, 24 cameras at one school, inspection of of asphalt, soil vapor probes, sewer repair. This is tonight what you're dealing with in terms of environmental safety and general safety at your schools. I'm saying that there is a vast amount of safety issues. I'm not talking about everything.

I'm just talking about what's on here tonight. One of the safety issues that I take lastly, take tremendous issue with is your voluntary your volunteer's policy where you do not do background checks. You have a item on here where an agency is gonna be doing services for you and they identify that they fingerprint everybody that's gonna be involved with the service to your children. That's identified as a part of how they they, identify credibility for the people coming to deal with these children. You cannot state law says everybody that volunteers in the school district throughout the state has to have a background check, and you don't do it.

Thank you. Miss

Yes. Miss Haynes, if you can go ahead and mute yourself.

Hi. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. We can hear you.

Okay. Hi. Thank you. So for me, school safety continues to be my priority for my student learning online and everything. I I really pray that the schools can be a place of love and respect.

Since since the last board meeting, I learned a dear parent who was working at a school site passed away. I'm I'm still not understanding the details around it, but, I was closely connected to him at my son's last in person school site. I I just I really urge the district to adopt my resolution in mandating a joyful environment that doesn't cost any money. My my ongoing push for the district to mandate a culture shift, like students and adults should never be in an environment where language triggers violence to happen. And although I wish you could fully fund the arts, my hope is that at no cost to the district, the district can reinforce respect.

There's just so much uncertainty about the budget and the financial challenges, but but truly the mindset of a person is is triggered by what they hear. So, please just reinforce love and respect. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other public speakers?

No. President Berhat, that concludes public speakers.

Are there board comments? Director Barry.

Hi, thank you for the presentation. I do have a few questions. I don't know if we have time for this, but it would be great. So the first is regarding what's on slide seven priority two implementation of standards, particularly because it's some of this is implicated in the OEATA that's on the agenda for tonight. The my first question is how do you identify teachers and groups in need of specific professional learning opportunities?

And then it says those were measured at four three three and so I'm curious for those in the initial implementation phase, what is being implemented? How is that going? What are you learning there? And then my second question is about slide eight, completely unrelated because that's on parent and family engagement. And I'm asking because this came up during our retreat last week or I don't know when it it doesn't matter.

Our recent retreat. And there was some conversation from that was inspired by the students on our board who spoke about how important and significant their relationships with teachers are and some of the necessary work that they hope to see occur there. And so similarly curious what's being implemented to facilitate the development of staff to build trusting relationships with families.

Thank you. I'm gonna let doctor Aguilera, who's on Zoom, address the first question and I think possibly the second as well.

Thank you, director Barry, for the question. So in terms of professional development, we have a menu that is considered our foundational professional development, and that ensures that, all of our staff are, trained in the same areas. These areas are named also in the LCAP, which is coming up next. And so we focus on the implementation of the training specific to those areas. So we have, of course, standards aligned professional development that's connected to the implementation of curriculum, but then also what we call the pedagogical approach.

So, the style in which you deliver instruction not only based on the curriculum. We also have RJ, so restorative justice for our secondary schools is considered to be foundational. We also have our equity series of training that the Office of Equity delivers and that's also considered foundational. We also have PBIS, so positive behavior incentives and support. That is another style of training to foster positive culture.

So that's what we consider foundational and that's what we track. And we aim to have all of our staff trained in those specific areas that we consider foundational. Does that answer the question around how we decide?

It does. And you would observe those things because someone is in the classroom observe make delivering observations.

Correct. And there's also our evaluation system. It's t t d t g d s, so the teacher growth and development system. It's area two that focuses on the classroom culture, and that's where you'll see the connection between what is named in the evaluation process connected to the professional development that we are providing. So it's culturally responsive pedagogy and the way that a teacher conducts the classroom.

So that's the area that you'll see that measured.

Okay, thank you.

The questions? Director Hutchinson. Sorry. The other

question was regarding parent family engagement, slide eight.

So we have had opportunities for families to access centralized gatherings for parents to learn more about a certain topic. And so we have been trying at a central level to provide some of the more general, you know, opportunities for parents to access a report cards, how to interpret any sort of like test results. And then really at the school site level, it is school by school where they are implementing monthly activities and that is a measurement that we do. That's how we come to this score. We do expect for every school to offer at least one opportunity a month to engage with the school through school wide events.

And then there are four opportunities that we are look for for the more teacher to parent connections that we actually measure. Of course, are more interactions with families and our teachers, but the way that we have approached measurement of that has been through those four activities. And principals have to submit their activities for us to come up with the metric that we use in the local indicator. So that's the way that we have measured the connection. We don't specify what the connection should be, but we do provide a menu for school sites to choose from in case they're wanting to improve a certain area.

And then the Office of Equity is instrumental in helping to implement. If a school site has a question about how do you actually implement this option here, they will consult with school sites to implement those activities. And so we have had some staffing changes that are going forward for the upcoming year, and, we are shifting some of those responsibilities, to partner with the community schools office because there is still, you know, grant funding that's associated with improving the connection between families and school sites. That maybe doesn't so much get to the question about teachers, but we do have an expectation of four events per school year, and that's what we measure towards and help school sites if they're not reaching that metric that we have, put out as an expectation.

Director Hutchinson.

Yes. Thank you. You know, I I wanna again cite my frustration that the first time I saw any of the items on the agenda, including this report, was Sunday afternoon when it was posted publicly. And so, you know, president Brohard never sent out a draft agenda, never even got anything emailed to me in terms of an agenda for this meeting at all. And so it it makes it very hard when I'm given all the documents seventy two hours before the meeting, and the first thing I have to try to go through is actual budget, which I also only received seventy two hours before the meeting.

You know, and along with that, last week's committee meetings, you know, I would have assumed that this would have gone to the teaching and learning committee, but last week that meeting was canceled. And last week's facilities meeting, was in violation of the Brown Act because there was no livestream. So it means there's no real minutes of the meeting. No. There wasn't a livestream.

Zoom isn't Zoom isn't livestream. So when I clicked on the district website and tried to watch the meeting, we watched the district advertisements that run and there was no notice on the livestream saying, it was not working, please use another form to participate, which makes the meeting in violation. And so you can keep talking while I'm trying to talk and try to disagree with me, but I'll be bringing that up later. You know, one of the things here is we have to remember this is self reporting. So this is just the district saying, this is how we think we're doing on these things.

And really what I wish the real question was right now is based on this report in this dashboard, how are the cuts that have been announced and the changes going to impact that for next year going forward? Because I hear lots of the key departments and and people who carried out the work referenced in the dashboard are now positions that are being impacted. And even more importantly, as a board and as a district, this is our last board meeting of the year, and we still haven't had one conversation about what our schools are going to look like next year. And again, with all these changes that have been made, eliminating a network, cutting middle school electives, all these jobs that we saw laid off and impacted, attendance specialists, literacy coaches, a number of positions, There hasn't been one discussion about what are we doing as a district to accommodate that so we're ready to open school in August. And I'm not gonna have time to talk about that tonight because I'm gonna have to talk about the budget numbers, But I just really wanna put that on the record which really impacts what we just saw in our dashboard.

Because we know what's going on now with the way things are being mismanaged by the lack of planning and governance anywhere. I can only imagine how the dashboard's going to reflect that next year when, again, tonight, not one conversation about how are we reopening school in August, what is that going to look like. And when I get documents including a budget of a billion dollars for all funds, seventy two hours before I'm supposed to vote on it, things are seriously, seriously wrong. Thank

you. Just note quickly, it was agendized for teaching and learning, unfortunately. That was canceled. And we have made an effort throughout the LCAP to identify in the goal analysis for each section what has been reduced. There's a section the last section of each goal analysis, is what is changing for next year.

So we have made an attempt in each section to identify what is going away and what will be done differently as a result of that. That can absolutely be flushed out, although I will note that the LCAT is 300 pages already. So we may look for other spaces for that, but that work is ongoing.

I had one other question. It's a particular, it's a small one. I'm just curious in all of the areas of instruction that had fours except for instructional delivery for history social science. And I'm always concerned at a district level how much we actually pay it to I mean, again, I know with staffing, but how do we see improving our history and social science delivery, I guess, all the way through for elementary, middle, and high school?

I will also defer to doctor Aguilera on that question.

Yes. Thank you, Diana. I can take this question. So for social studies and for history, we offer far less opportunities for professional development, and we're very knowledgeable about the fact that we prioritize our English language arts, Spanish language arts for our dual language schools, and math more so than other curricular areas. And so there is definitely a lopsided focus on English language arts and math as compared to history and social studies.

So in our offerings, we try to increase the number of opportunities we have for those specific teachers, especially at the secondary level, but we know it's not at the same level as our ELA and math opportunities. So that's how we could improve that particular area. We also have pretty outdated curriculum in the elementary level, and we have put off doing any adoptions because the state is going through an updated framework. So they update the framework every like seven to ten years, And so we're anticipating that final framework so that way we can update the elementary curriculum. We believe that our secondary curriculum will be fine through that updated framework, but we know that our elementary content has been more out of date.

And so that's how we'll be able to get to a higher number is through more relevant adopted curriculum and then the associated professional development for elementary. And then at secondary, having more content specific professional development that's not asking teachers to kind of blend the content because of time. So that's what we've named in our self reflection.

I guess one further question, doctor Aguilera, is that I mean, I think one of the ways to increase our literacy skills is also through history social science. So is there a plan to actually integrate those two pieces in in as we improve our instructional services?

Definitely. Especially at the secondary level, there has been an ongoing discussion really since I Ready became, a tool that is used at the secondary level. We didn't have a way to measure student literacy at the secondary level. And so now that we have iReady to do that, there is more of a focus across grade levels on how to teach literacy. And, the secondary schools have been having the discussion of we're not only content teachers, we are also teachers of literacy.

So that is the focus for secondary content. We do have our standards and equity training that happens every summer and that is the focus and has been. And for elementary, I would say that we have taken this approach to try to blend through the units and using the literature that's connected to teach through a novel or a book about a specific historical time. And that's where I would say it's a little bit more weak because it's not so much on the history that has happened. It's more so on the literacy skills that we're trying to develop at the lower grades.

So that's the approach so far and really a discussion that's somewhat new at the secondary level and more of a focus because we're now seeing how students are achieving in literacy at the secondary level, especially high school.

Thank you. Are there any other board comments? Okay. With that, we will move on to the next item. Thank you, Diana Sherman.

Next on the agenda is item k two two, sorry. Which is the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty seven local control and accountability plan year three. And I believe you're back up here again, right? Oh, is there a motion to adopt? So moved.

Second.

Thank you. Again, name is Diana Sherman. I coordinate the Local Control and Accountability Plan or the LCAP, and this is our presentation for our final draft that we're bringing to you tonight for adoption. So tonight, we are going to review briefly some of the changes to the LCAP, and then our ask of you is that you do adopt this plan to cover our third and final year of this LCAP cycle. And then next fall, we will be back with more to begin the start of the next three year cycle.

Much of this we went through at the public hearing. This is just a refresher that we are near the end of our cycle, so we are not making significant changes to our goals, metrics, or actions. Doubly so this year with spending reductions. We're not looking to introduce new work at this stage, and so that's a lot of what you will see here. And learning recovery, again, we've covered this in the past, but just a quick reminder, this is now subject to particular restrictions at the state level that govern its use.

It has to be aligned with the needs assessment that was developed by the state to settle the, a lawsuit around the use of these funds. So we do ensure that we're compliant with that in our use of that money, which does preclude some schools from receiving that money based on performance. Okay. And most significant change again in the LCAP that we bring you to this evening, is the introduction of five new program areas. You will see those both in next year's planned spending, but also in the current year.

Those shifts were made current year for the twenty five-twenty six school year in order to alleviate pressure on the LCFF based budget, and to spend down some of the carryover in supplemental and concentration. Those investments are six small elementary schools, seven alternative education high schools, which includes our continuation programs and also our alternative schools of choice, with the exception of one continuation school that is our quote unquote base program. Noon supervisors at our elementary schools, this includes all noon supervisors, all attendance specialists across the district, and our substitute teacher incentive program, or STIP subs, which there are 44 of them across the district. We have added a couple of new metrics, but primarily we are tabling that for next year's LCAP cycle because we will be at the start of a new three year piece. So you will see a few metrics that have been added, to measure some of the outcomes that we are hoping to see with these investments, as well as with some of our investments at our new equity multiplier schools.

But broadly, that is work that will begin in the fall to develop a set of new metrics to measure whatever goals are established for the next three year LCAP cycle. And that is in part because the closing year of data for this LCAP cycle is the twenty five-twenty six data, and that makes it very difficult obviously to measure something you're doing in twenty six-twenty seven with twenty five-twenty six data. We covered these already, so I will not go further into this, but we do just want to kind of highlight that we did have to end or reduce some of our existing supplemental and concentration investments to make room for these ongoing investments. They are covered here. They were also covered at the public hearing.

And so some of these include reductions of positions, reductions particularly in our non labor spending, which is things like curriculum, like our contracts for work around safety, like our contracts for work around licensing, those pieces that live within that space, as well as the elimination of many roles and positions that were either related to early retirement or were related to other reductions that were made within each department. We've also eliminated some district wide investments like our teachers for late arriving continuation students, like our attendance case managers, which were a new investment in 2526, and like our community school managers and our attendance specialists and new supervisors, they were over and above the base at our schools that didn't qualify for targeted funds like learning recovery. We've talked about all of that at prior meetings, so I won't go through it again now, but it is just a reminder that that comes as part of this shift. And so I'll go through this. We do have new equity multiplier schools.

We talked about these, earlier this month as well at the public hearing, but we have shared their plans for their spending. We have also since received some plans from some of our exiting schools around carryover funding and have added that to this draft of the LCAP. So you'll see a few schools that are no longer equity multiplier but have some remaining money. You'll see small amounts invested there. And we have adjusted the goals as needed and the metrics as needed to accommodate these schools.

And then most significantly, we are updating the supplemental and concentration carryover projection based on the LCAP action tables. We are now projecting between 2,000,000 and $3,000,000 remaining in carryover. So the first question of that is kind of why that difference from prior years when it was closer to $30,000,000 The most significant piece of that is that we have wound down things like COVID one time funding that we were using to shift costs into out of if they were eligible out of our supplemental and concentration dollars to ensure we were using those one time COVID dollars first before tapping into our unrestricted dollars. The second for this year specifically is, again, that we did make current year shifts of those investments for small elementary, Alt Ed, attendance, noon, and STIP subs in this current year, which used up the carryover that remained from last year in in its entirety. We've also reserved already funds for retroactive pay related to the OEA, tentative agreement that is on your agenda later this evening, and that is already earmarked and accounted for so that there is funding set aside for those positions.

The reason we are up a little bit from zero, which is what we were projecting at the public hearing, is simply that we have some investments specifically around some district wide licensing for software that did not go through before the June 30 or will not go through before the June 30 deadline. They will be in July instead. And so because of that, they shift to next year. That money is already earmarked for those investments. And so that is not new money to spend, but it is money that will pull into the twenty six, '20 seven year and then pretty immediately be spent when those materials and licenses are received and are booked.

So questions around that, we will return also midyear next year with further details. It's the close for any questions.

Thank you. Is there public comment on this?

For public speakers, we have two registered speakers. Matt Glaser, Asalo Bala.

Okay. You would come to the dais. Two minutes.

Hello there, board superintendents. Matt Glaser, lead delegate of the PSAC. Good to see you all. Happy summer. I just came up to briefly express some gratitude.

We did actually get the response to the PSAC's feedback, and it was very thoughtfully put together, and it was representative of a pattern this year of great engagement and partnership during our meetings. Our meetings have all been wonderful and civil. We've had the superintendent and other district leaders, board members at many of the meetings, and I really believe that the plan to meet with us in August around many of these items that has been pledged by the superintendent is a real signal that the engagement here is real and that the work being done is being respected. It was a very difficult year to deal with the LCAP, especially when you're new around here like I am. And so I wanted to say thanks to everybody for helping us through this.

It's a lot to chew, and I'm just going to hope that it's not quite this hard every year. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

So on your consent agenda, item number 247 is your tentative agreement with OEA and OUSD. Now within that agreement, you're gonna be agreeing to allow for preparation time, professional collaboration, class size reduction, support for students with disabilities, new support for students who are newcomer students, expanding provisions. I don't know what that means. Safety provisions. I'm sorry.

Strengthening educators, working conditions. And where's the fiscal financial breakdown for accommodating all of those items that are in that item number 247 that you're gonna rubber stamp with every did anybody pull that one? You pulled 247? Good. We we're gonna have some discussion on that.

How would you put that item as so crucial for discussion with 250 something items to be and not independently discussed? You have on this item k three, defer new programs and and activities that are not yet underway. You can't defer reparations for black kids. That's never been on it's been on the agenda, but it's never been dealt with. So I hope you're not saying that you're gonna defer reparations for black students as a recommendation because you never started.

Okay? It's not new. It's something that's been in place for years, but it's never been dealt with. Reparation for black students should get some attention this coming school school year.

Thank you. Are there any other comments?

No. That include that include our speakers.

K. Are there any board comments?

I'm sorry. Thank you. I appreciate the presentation but I'm just a little confused on the priorities that OUSD has moving forward in our budget and, you know, with everything that's just going on. I'm just confused on how we're prioritizing non student facing positions like attendance specialists when we have these positions that we're okay with losing like our special education teachers, our supporters, our foster youth, they're gonna be, you know, alone if we're taking away our social services teams. All of these things are actually student facing.

These are the people that come and make our students feel safe at schools and I'm just confused on how we're okay with letting go these very, very important positions, but we're putting more funding towards these other ones. It just it's just not working for me, and I'm just wondering what OUSD what's the goal for the students, what you guys are working towards next year and the years to come?

That's a really timely comment because I think we're coming into the next LCAP cycle to really reestablish priorities. And I will say it is definitely, I think, not okay with anyone that we are removing things like the attendance case managers. Those were really critical positions. There were a lot of really, really difficult decisions and trade offs that had to be made. The attendance specialists, I think, were prioritized in part because of the role of attendance taking, as a mandatory activity and as kind of ensuring that students are actually in school and attending school.

But I think they were working together, and so you do have part of that puzzle that we'll be missing if we're not able to figure out how to fund that ongoing. We are definitely in a space where most of what we fund as a school district is student facing or family facing in some way, whether it's direct or a step back from there in a role like an administrator, for assistant principal, for an attendant specialist, different ways that families and students are reached by that. So that leaves very little to be reduced, especially in the LCAP where almost everything is one or two degrees removed from students. There's very little there that can be cut that is not going to directly affect student experiences, and so some of that had to do with figuring out how to weigh those things. That's a conversation that can continue into the next three year cycle to see.

And it may be that those of you here, those out in the community have a different set of priorities and want to shuffle that for the new three year cycle. This year, I would say we were really just trying to get to the end of this three year cycle and not restart decision making, but that's gonna be a space to do that next year, absolutely. It does not solve, obviously, this year's problem.

Any other any other board comments? Director Barry?

Along those lines and especially as we enter the stabilization and plan and budget conversations, Given all of the significant changes that you presented that are included in the LCAP, what is the process that you are undergoing, you and your colleagues are undergoing to build and maintain coherence across the system and to fill the gaps that have been created by all the changes? What's the plan and what's the process to build and implement?

I'm gonna have doctor Argueira answer this one as well.

Thank you for the question, director Barry. So what we, have been doing is adjusting what we call the scope of work that our departments and individual staff will be taking on and then, naming specifically the areas that we will not be able to continue based on the reductions. We did do a preview of that work in PSAC, and so our parent student advisory committee. So that way we could go through each of the goal areas to name specifically the shifts that would be happening, in that particular goal area. So we are not, you know, sidestepping the conversation that there are gonna be changes, but the way that we are regrouping is to go through the specific work that is implemented to improve, each of the LCAP goal areas and being specific about how we're gonna need to adjust, and possibly not do all of the activities, the actions, services that are listed within the LCAP, and we have named that specifically also in the areas of the LCAP in connection with the reductions in staffing and non labor costs as well.

And then oh, go ahead. Did you have

something gonna add that I think that last point is very important, which is that we absolutely are not going to be able to do all the things we have been doing with fewer people and fewer resources. And so I think that's important for everyone to kind of understand and acknowledge. We've tried to name that throughout the LCAP where we can, but it will affect metrics and outcomes, and we will be discussing that in next year's LCAP as we look back and have some of the 2627 data.

So you just addressed one of my follow-up questions, so thank you. And just at a even higher level, if from your perspective you believe that what is before us that is possible to fulfill the LCAP even despite the gaps?

That's a tricky question. I don't think we will meet the metrics in some of the areas. Some of those we were not making progress towards regardless, like before this year. I think we will see an impact there. We will still because we have very broad action areas, there will still be work happening.

We don't have any action areas where we've ended all work. We definitely have action areas that have been dramatically reduced, and you'll see that if you compare year over year dollar amounts, for instance, between the action areas. We also have some that appear to be much inflated but aren't actually. An example of that is alternative education. We are doing less, not more, in alternative education, but if you look at the LCAP, it looks like we are doing a lot more.

That is simply an artifact of movement of those costs from the base budget into supplemental and concentration, which meant they moved into the LCAP. That is not because we are dramatically expanding our investment education. And in fact, that's an important one to highlight. We're actually not doing our late arriving teachers for continuation students. So that's less than we were.

We're staffing at higher classroom sizes than we were this year. But that's not going to be visible because of the way the funding structure works. LCAP encompasses all supplemental and concentration funds. It does not include the base. So if that's not clear, I'm happy to talk offline with folks to kind of work through that particular piece too that is an oddity.

And then the final question, follow-up to what Sandra shared is, will the do and won't do list be publishable to us so that as we are assessing metrics and what we're meeting and what we're not, we have context for what the inputs are.

I know we've had that asked already, and I will see if Doctor. Aguilera wants to speak a little further to it since she's been most involved in the work of how those scopes of work are shifting for staff?

I would also suggest that the area or the space that we can have more of those in-depth conversations is in the teaching and learning committee structure. That's where we've also had the conversations around the shifting of the scope of work, in addition to PSAC. So, yes, we can have more of that, specific conversation, and I believe the forum would be teaching and learning as the best, structure to, kind of contain that overall needed discussion about what we will be implementing and what we will not be implementing.

Director Simmons?

So I just wanna ask some things for clarification. So with your significant changes, in ending s and c investments, these goals are these so it's the it's the elimination of itself, so many things. And when you're saying goal reductions and eliminations, are these things that you that we want to eliminate? Are these things that we're seeking to eliminate actively or we want to eliminate and it's just a it's just a want and it's just a recommendation or these things that we're actively seeking to eliminate?

Things included on the list in this slide deck have been eliminated for 2627 and I would say those are things not that anybody wanted to eliminate but just for the scale of magnitude, our annual budget for supplemental and concentration is about 120,000,000. We had about 30,000,000 in carryover from prior years that had accumulated during the COVID years, so we were working with a budget of about 150,000,000 this year. We moved in about 30,000,000, 25,000,000, I think, of investments from base. So not only did we spend all our carryover back down from a 150 to a 120, we also had 25,000,000 of new things that we had to pay for, which meant we had to find 30 plus $2,555,000,000 in cuts across the programs.

Okay. And then I have I have one extra question. And I say it is want because I believe it is a want because we we need we need to eliminate some things and there are things that we want to get rid of rather than others so that's why I use want. But when we sought to eliminate these things for 2627, was there any time in which the people who made the decisions to eliminate these positions went to any of the school sites or any of the places and spoke around, just spoke around and asked about and asked the people who worked there and the people who were receiving how they felt about the positions that were there in total, not just the positions that were seeming to be eliminated but every position in total. Which positions do they see do they feel the most effect from and which positions not just which positions are most expensive but which positions are most effective for the people that's in that community.

And I just want to know when we made these decisions, were there anybody who not just once or twice but consistently went to these communities and asked around, talked around, and just understood.

I'll let doctor Aguilar describe how that process works.

A of a point of clarification, director Simmons. We as a school board voted in the layoff list to make this decision. It wasn't anybody else. These positions were eliminated through March 15 letters that the school board is required to vote on by law. So all of these cuts and positions were voted on by the board.

That was the reason, and

I said it at the time, that

I didn't vote for those layoffs because we didn't even have a conversation about half the positions. So I just wanna make sure that you all understand. It wasn't somebody else that decided that was a school board vote.

Gonna let, doctor Aguilera answer that question.

So prior to entering in the conversation around budget reductions, we, did a survey of principals to ask for them to in like, the way they see the services at their school site, if they would name their top priorities. And so that was the extent of the engagement that happened to begin the conversation around reduction. So I felt like I had a sense of the, services, especially for students that, our principals felt were the most impactful and helpful. But then the way that you described the question, there wasn't, a lot of, iterative or, back and forth conversations that happened with, school site leaders and beyond the to the school site staff. You know, as you described it, it didn't happen in that way.

Alright. And So I just wanna leave a little bit of a of a recommendation and I am aware that we are the ones that made that decision but there are a lot of people who make recommendations to us on the things that we should eliminate and the positions that we feel that people feel that we should get rid of. But just a kind of just a small hint, you know, to solving a puzzle. I think we get rid of so many positions and we move so fast and I think we spend so much time thinking that by the time that it's time to make an action, we haven't laid down any test runs, we haven't laid down any foundational pieces except thoughts. And there's no we haven't done anything actionable to help us make the help us make our final action, to give us evidence and allow us to make a logical action based off of that evidence.

So when, and I say this because so when you know we're we finally make the decision to get rid of certain positions and we look back as we're as we often do look back now and we see that there are so many positions that we shouldn't have cut if only we had just talked to somebody to understand the importance of that decision of that program, of that position, of that person, then we would avoid a lot of things. And I just we need to stop thinking so much and to just start acting and to get out and you know actions doesn't mean that we're implementing something. Actions can mean that we're just going out and talking to somebody. And we yeah. Yeah.

That's my that that's my that's my piece.

Thank you. I wanna name also that you have kinda touched on one of the single biggest challenges that lies ahead for the new three year LCAP, which is understanding whether something is having an impact or not, how we understand how to measure that and whether we can measure that. I think a great example is the attendance case managers who came in for just the twenty five, twenty six year and then were gone again. From an LCAP lens, they're they're not even in the data. Like, we will not have a concrete way to measure what impact those had on students on attendance, because it was just the single year.

We don't have any long longer term data. We don't have a great set of here's some schools who had them and here's some schools who didn't or other kind of comparative pieces. So I think it it really will be a dilemma for all of us as a community to hold when we look at the LCAP and try to weigh that. And then I will just say anecdotally, just because I think it's important to name, that I think every position we fund at school sites is incredibly important to somebody somewhere, and it's a there if we had cut a different set of positions, if we had said we're not gonna have, you know, the the community school managers, but we're gonna keep the case managers, we would have had a different set of frustration and challenges. It's really hard decision making, but I absolutely agree with you that there should be a stronger engagement at school sites specifically to understand.

And it may be that it doesn't look the same at every school site and that that we need to kind of acknowledge that piece too.

Thank you, Diana. I just wanted to make a couple points related to this. Part of the process had to do with the fact that we had a major deficit, and then we're also dealing with one time funds. So I think it was really a positive thing that when we received had one time funds to support students, specifically, you know, for instance with case managers, there was action taken to say, with those funds, let's make it good for this year that we have the funds. Unfortunately, those funds weren't extended for follow-up a follow-up period.

The other piece is that I had a chance to participate in a student led process. Actually, was at Castlemont, and one of the major leaders was director Loops. And so I wanted to say that the students at that time had a process they went through. Troy Christmas and director Lada were participating in that. I believe director Williams was in attendance, where students actually went through the process of looking at what would they do if they had only certain monies to work with and they had to make some decisions.

It was a really good process in terms of They understood the dilemma from going through having to make those decisions. And I think there needed to be more of those kind of engagements that was with ACC. But maybe that kind of engagement process would have been really helpful and something to think about in the future at every single site. Because the students really did a great job in participating and prioritizing what they would do in if they were in charge of a district. And that thought I thought that was really thoughtfully done and I'm really happy that I had a chance to observe that.

I absolutely believe that the students felt it was a real dilemma to make those decisions because they felt that everything was important. I also wanna acknowledge that the students thought that many of the students who needed a lot of attention, like special needs students, etcetera, they were very sensitive to making sure that all students were getting support. So I just wanted to remind everybody that along with the outreach with some of our parent groups, there was really specific work done by students which represented all of our schools. And I was glad I had a chance to observe that.

Thank you. With that, mister Riekstra, I'd like to call the

vote Excuse me. I I've been waiting to speak

for Go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you, director Simmons and and director Smith for for bringing up a really important issue. To me, it kinda feels like another attempt to gaslight you for what you just said and brought up. So, you know, I just wanna make really clear that we never had a discussion about what position should be cut. Haven't had a real discussion about what we saved from it.

This isn't a new thing. This is something that's existed in the district for over a decade. So the fact that a response to what you brought up would be, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. We should think about that in the future. It's actually what we used to do every year.

And this is another one that's very difficult for me because, again, I just got these documents seventy two hours before the meeting. I thought it was very interesting in the presentation to hear that we burned through $30,000,000 worth of carryover in the s and c. That's one time dollars that we had built up and something that we always had in the past. But this year, that money's been tapped. I also heard these funds have even been tapped more than that because I know what's been happening is somebody in the district has been raiding other funds and restricted dollars to mask the problem.

Because I'm sorry, superintendent Sadler, you misspoke before. The problem with this year's budget was you've allowed over $60,000,000 in overspending. A balanced budget was passed before you became superintendent, and that overspending has all been on your watch. That's what's happened this year with the finances. That's why s and c carryover was burned through.

And now not only do we have the same level of commitments for next year, not only do we not have enough funding for it, we've burned through our carryover so there's not even a cushion left. Because that's how the finances and the budget works. So I wish I would have had more time to go through this report ahead of time. I turned to the bottom where there's some of the financial numbers. For me, it's page two ninety five.

And it has the list of last year's total planned expenditures and and total estimated actual expenditures. So I assume when we're referring to last year, we're referring to 2526. Okay. So what I saw was planned expenditures were 356,000,000, but the actual expenditures were 332,000,000. Now, I just cited how we've overspent all over the place.

So the only way I can figure that we wound up spending less on the LCAT than we budgeted for is if that money was taken and we didn't receive those revenues, and so everything was lowered. Am am I correct in assuming the reason why we underspent the estimate for LCAP is because we didn't receive those revenues because they were used for something else?

No. I don't believe so. I would have to go through line by line. We do have a line item analysis that is in the LCAP folder. But primarily, that has to do with money.

So a good example, for instance, we received comprehensive support and improvement, or CSI, grant that is fully in the LCAP, as is our equity multiplier grant. Both of those were underspent in 2526, which had to do primarily with hiring freezes and spending freezes, and also with schools that just simply weren't able to find candidates for positions. So they ended the year not having fully spent the money that they had planned to spend. So that money shows up in planned but unspent. It does roll forward to next year, and you will see it as part of the planned money now for 2627.

And assuming they do spend it, it will then become part of the spent money for 2627. I would have to look to get get you to, I think, the 30,000,000 difference there. Each of that, it's all across the different resources because it's also grants. It's also other restricted dollars that sit in any of our LCAP action areas. So I can only speak most intimately to the pieces that I manage, which is the supplemental and concentration budget, of which we had a budget around 150,000,000, and we're on track to spend about 148 of that 150.

And then our title budget, we are working very hard to make sure that we do fully expend that. We did have spending that slowed down on that in part, again, because of some of the slow freezes during the year where people were not able to get spending done that they had planned. And so that was also underspent this year, for instance. And then we have an ongoing challenge in this district with vacancies. They tend to hit the LCAP resources, are the supplemental concentration.

Those are unrestricted, but they are LCAP resources. And the things like the title grants, like our tax measures, etcetera. That is because, for instance, if you are an elementary school principal and your third grade teacher resigns on the second week of school, you often pull for instance, you might pull your teacher from special assignment and put them back into a classroom. Now you're paying for that position out of base. You're no longer using the title one money that was paying for your TSA.

You might post that position the third week of school. You might not hire until January, and that just has to do with the cadence of how that works. And so every year, it is typical that we see some shift into the base when people resign, and people need to fill those core roles. That is what makes them base roles is that they are essential. So that is a normal piece, but to my knowledge, none of it had to do with revenue that did materialize.

So thank you for for your careful words, and and I appreciate your answer there. I'm just really concerned because as you bring up how SNC carryover was attached this year, and we know other restricted funds have been swept. What I heard you say also is that the funds that you're directly in charge of did almost fully spend. So I'm just really concerned when we see when we know overspending every place, every dollar's been been attached. And then I see overall underspending here.

It just makes me concerned. And the last question I have that I don't want an answer for now, but the budget numbers changed from the presentation two weeks ago in the public hearing. So I'm I haven't had time to check, but I'm I wanna know if the overall LCAP numbers have changed to correspond with the changes in the budget overall, which was eliminating $60,000,000 in expenditures and unrestricted.

I will answer that one just because it's an important one. And so our LCAP numbers changed slightly between public hearing and final adoption because we continue to refine those dollars. Supplemental and concentration have not changed in between those two drafts. That is because we are still working off of the LCFF calculator, is done, by FICMAT for all districts in the state that was run on third interim, and so we are still using those numbers. Our fiscal team will talk more about that when they present the budget, but it does not include what we call the super COLA, meaning the increased cost of living adjustment.

SNC will go up when that is applied, and that will be when we come back to you in August or September for the forty five day revise. We will bring you updated SNC numbers at that point. All of the other changes you see in the LCAP between the public hearing draft and now have to do with things like notification of a new grant. I get that information from the staff who manage that grant. I add it to the LCAP.

Shifting of a position, from one resource to another that fiscal may catch in their final cleanup, I make that change in the LCAP. I am checking constantly against our budget model. And then as soon as we roll into the new fiscal year, I pull the live budget, and I check it again. We correct all the things that are not as they should be, and we reflect any intentional changes. And then the last piece I do just wanna say, absolutely, we do not ever wanna be overspending our LCAP resources.

We do want to be fully expending supplemental and concentration. It $30,000,000 was far more carryover than we ever should have in those resources because they should be spent in the year they're generated. 2,000,000 is a healthy amount, I think, to have on a $120,000,000 budget because it does give us leeway for some variance there. But the main reason we have been carrying that significant carryover for the last five years is because we've had a cascading set of ending COVID grants that we have been furiously making sure we don't give any money back to. So if it's allowable, it goes into the grant.

If it's allowable, it goes into the grant. So we've been sweeping essentially each year. If those monies are not spent as planned, we find things that are eligible to move there. And so that's an ongoing process. That will slow because we are almost to the end of that cycle.

We have a few one time grants like learning recovery remaining. But every year when grants expire, we do go through that process. If there's something eligible that we can move in, we do do that. That is part of how we manage the restricted side of the budget in pieces, again, that touch the LCAP. So I think that's just important to acknowledge that we we don't want to be running carryover broadly speaking for SMC.

So I think that is a how we got there is a bigger conversation, but it's it's not our goal to ever be back in a space where we have carryover at that scale.

Director Batchelor. Director Williams.

Yes. I just have a question regarding our targeted academic and intervention programs. So my my question really is about the metrics of how do we what metrics will we use, you know, for those students receiving targeted intervention? Like, are the warning signs? Is there gonna be like an interim way of us measuring that?

Is there these conversations with our principals, administrators? And, you know, how will we mitigate those impacts, potential impacts that will come about?

Can you clarify? Are you talking about the targeted intervention that the Office of Equity holds? Yes.

Okay.

So for those currently, we measure them against district wide metrics for those focal student groups. We don't currently have a great way at the student level to measure students who actually participated in receiving that measure or that intervention versus those who may be in that same demographic group but who didn't receive that. So for instance, a student who is participating in AAMA programming versus one who is not. We have that same challenge in things like students who participate in RJ versus those who don't, or students who receive tutoring versus those who don't. We're measuring all of those at the district level right now, at a very high level.

The office of equity does do work on trying to look at a much finer grain detail. I think one of the places we've been most successful in this is with our athletics investments actually, with looking at participation in in the Oakland Athletic League and how that impacts student performance. And that simply has to do with do we have the data in a way that we can access it and really run that analysis. We don't for a lot of our focal student groups, in part because there's a balance of privacy and also capacity. With all things metrics, I think I caution that we are very stretched very, very thinly in our research and data team right now.

And they, again, have lost positions going into next year. There are many things that in concept we could measure, but in practice, we can't, because we do not have capacity to do that. So I think that's just a piece to name, that where they're able to, they do a great deal of work at adding do it yourself dashboards, adding anywhere where we're already collecting the data, making it accessible so that we can measure it. But it becomes much more complicated when we're looking at, for instance, needing to pull from Aries, which is managing our case our our class system, like who's enrolled in that class? What's their outcome of their test scores?

How do we match that here? That's a much more complex piece than simply looking at, let's look at how all of our African American ninth grade boys are performing across the district. And so that those are pieces we have to kinda balance with how much are we able to do ongoing so that we can compare it year over year. But next year is when we will begin that conversation again for the new three year cycle of what metrics

do

we wanna prioritize, and how do we choose some over others so that we match what we've prioritized to the capacity of our data team.

Thank you. Just real quick. In teaching and learning, office equity came in and did a presentation and showed us the metrics that they have. So I just was wondering if you're gonna partner with them. You know, we do have regular engagements that we share the student data with various organizations that come in to do the work.

So I know that you would have more access to that than they would. And so understanding that many students have decreased the chronic absenteeism, many students have increased their academic outcomes. The question really is, even though you are short staffed, it seems like there's an opportunity to build a partnership with the Office of Equity to understand the impacts of how these particular changes are gonna affect our young folks who are actually been in very highly sophisticated classes to increase their academic outcomes. And I would just hate to see that we just leave it to we're just short staffed and we're not able to grab that data because that data has been going on for the last decade at least in regards to the work that's been happening in office equity.

Yeah. And they they do develop those metrics themselves, so they choose kind of what they have capacity ongoing to be able to report on.

And they will share that with the LCAP as well. Is that correct? And then you use that to make the decisions moving forward. Yes. That's what I'm expecting.

They manage goal three almost in its entirety, which is where most of our family engagement and then the targeted work lives in goal two. And so each action within the LCAP has a lead, and that lead is responsible for helping to determine what the metrics are for that action. And they choose what they

Right. And so my concern though is I don't want us to be here at this year from now and saying we don't have any metrics of how we you know, how these cuts have impacted our students. Right? Like or if we have like an interim way of finding metrics as early warning systems, so we can make the necessary investments and adjustments to find out. So I just don't want to wait till the next year at this time and say we were short staffed.

At work, we'll start very early. But again, it will be a prioritization task of identifying which measures we are able to continue and which we don't have capacity to do. We also have a set of metrics that we have to measure because they are mandated at the state level. And so those are not optional to say even if they may not be as important to us, one of the ones that comes up frequently is that we have to measure seventh and eighth grade dropouts. That is not ongoing, been a high priority for the district in terms of it's not a huge challenge that we have.

Is a mandated metric, so it is there.

And we also know that our African American, our Polynesian, our Asian students, Latino students. We've all put a lot of energy and a lot of work into that. And so for that to just be erased, that there is no particular way to capture what has gone on from this point on would be a tragedy.

That's all those are all mandated

groups. Correct.

So that would not go away.

Thank you.

And with that, mister Reichstag, can we have a roll call and the vote, please?

Yes. On the motion to adopt the LCAP for next school term. On the roll call, student director Simmons. Abstain. Student director Smith.

Abstain.

Director Ladder?

Yes.

Director Williams?

Yes, sir.

Director Hutchinson? Abstain. Director Barry?

Yes.

Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

President Burghard?

Yes.

The all cap for next year is adopted.

Thank you. With that, we will move on to item k three twenty six dash zero one zero six m, financial stabilization implementation plan progress update and path forward. Is there a motion to adopt?

So moved. Second.

I believe, superintendent Sadler, you have

some Yes. I just have some remarks I wanna make. Good evening, president, vice president, members of the board, staff, and members of our Oakland community. Tonight, we present our fiscal stabilization plan, and it's not simply as a budget document, but as a road map for protecting the future of the Oakland Unified School District and the students we are privileged to serve. Our purpose this evening is twofold.

First, we wanna demonstrate the significant progress we have already made in strengthening our financial position. Second, we want to present a thoughtful strategic approach for addressing our structural deficit in the years ahead while remaining focused on our highest priority student achievement. The fiscal challenges before us did not emerge overnight nor can they be solved through a single year's budget decision. They are the result of years of changing enrollment, rising operational costs, the expiration of one time pandemic funding, and increasing obligations that now require long term structural solutions. At the same time, we recognize that behind every budget decision are people, students, families, educators, and staff who rely on Oakland Unified every day.

That understanding has guided every recommendation before you. Over the past year, we have taken meaningful steps to improve our fiscal outlook. We have strengthened financial oversight, increased transparency, closely monitored expenditures, aligned spending with available resources, reduced unnecessary cost, and begun making difficult but necessary organizational decisions. These actions represent the beginning of a larger transformation, not the end of it. The NICE plan builds on that foundation.

Our fiscal stabilization plan is designed around several key principles. First, we must eliminate our structural deficit through sustainable solutions, not temporary fixes. Second, we must preserve investments that have the greatest impact on student learning, safety, and well-being. Third, we must continue improving organizational efficiency by examining every department, every program, and every operational practice to ensure our resources are aligned with our priorities. Fourth, we must continue to engage our board, labor partners, employees, families, and community in this work with transparency and honesty.

Fiscal stabilization cannot happen in isolation. It requires collective responsibility and shared commitment. This work is not simply about reducing expenditures. It's about redesigning our organization to become stronger, more efficient, and more sustainable for years to come. Throughout this process, we have continually asked ourselves three guiding questions.

Does the decision improve outcomes for students? Does it strengthen the long term financial health of the district? Does it position Oakland Unified School District to thrive, not just survive in the future? These questions have guided every recommendation in this plan, and we know these conversations are difficult. Change is never easy, particularly when resources are limited.

However, delaying action only increases the magnitude of future reductions. Responsible leadership requires us to make thoughtful decisions today so that future generations of Oakland students inherit a district that is financially sound and academically strong. This plan reflects a multi year commitment, not one year a one year solution. It represents disciplined financial stewardship while continuing to invest in the instructional core of our district. As we move move forward, we remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting classroom instruction, accelerating student achievement, strengthening attendance, and supporting our educators, maintaining safe and welcoming schools, and ensuring every student has access to the opportunities they deserve.

Fiscal responsibility and educational excellence are not competing priorities. They are inseparable. Strong finances create the stability necessary for sustained student success. I wanna express my sincere appreciation to our board of education, to Tara Gard, our deputy superintendent and fiscal services team, our executive leadership team and department leaders, our labor partners, and our community for their dedication throughout this process. But there's more work to do.

Their collaboration and willingness to confront difficult challenges must strengthen our resolve. This evening, we will walk you through not only the fiscal stabilization plan and our recommended budget. Our goal is clear, stabilize our finances, restore long term fiscal health, ensure Oakland Unified remains a district that fulfills its promise to every child. Together, we can make the difficult decisions required today while building a stronger, more sustain future for tomorrow. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you.

A point of point of clarification before we start. Just in the background memo to this information and then listening to the superintendent. In the background on the memo it says, the twenty twenty six twenty seven budget is balanced and legally supportable. The next sentence says, the multi year projection however shows continued net deficits of 36,000,000,700,000 and going up. The budget that's coming up for adoption shows a surplus.

The CFO on June 3 here said we have a $30,000,000 for deficit for next year. We can't have a surplus and a balanced budget at the same time as we have a deficit. All through this document, it references deficits. So how can we say there's a balanced budget? You cannot have a surplus in a balanced budget at the same time that you have a deficit.

So we just need clarification because that's a mistake right here in the background and in the presentation.

Admit it. You're gonna let we have our board comments.

It should be it should be easy. It's a point of clarification

Let me

that somebody easily should be able to answer this.

Director Hutchison, that will be absolutely clear through the presentations this evening. So please allow us to give the presentation.

Would you like to start your presentation, miss Gard?

Yes. Thank you.

So again, so nobody's gonna say excuse me.

I'm not going to excuse

Point of clarification and a point of order. No. I'm asking a question based on the documents, and I want a clarification of what's listed on the document that's being presented. My question is the most essential question. Do we have a surplus or do we have a deficit?

Because your documents now show that there's a surplus when everyone else has a deficit. That's the only question I want. And when we use those terms, we're referring to the same fund. You cannot have a surplus and a deficit in the same fund. It's it's impossible.

I'm going to remind us that we have an order that goes presentation, and then we have ample time for board comments. It is not appropriate to start off a question with the presenter.

What's not appropriate is we were supposed to get a draft agenda according to the board bylaws at the second meeting in May.

I would like

to was supposed to be a public hearing where the final numbers would be presented for a first read, and I got these numbers seventy two and a half hours before I'm supposed to vote on them for a billion dollar in total funds. You've made that And that fact that nobody else is concerned proves my point.

Thank you. Could we

Back to order please. Presentation.

Good evening board and community. Tara Gard, deputy superintendent business and operations, and I'm here to talk about the financial stabilization implementation plan. And, I wanted to start with that we've many people know, but in Oakland we have had struggles in our budget, deficits in our budget for many years. And as a result of that, we've also had quite a few plans. So what's important to think about is that we went back and looked at all of our previous plans to identify things that maybe we could continue to do and I'll talk about that as I continue on.

So we looked back at the fiscal vitality plan that was started in 2018 and then we went on to attachment a, b, c, and our current plan. Here we are talking about a deficit that we do have and the county office when we did our interim reports in April, the county office actually wrote a letter and they they identified that we had a $20,000,000 structural deficit in our current budget. It actually aligns to what the county said. So we do have a structural deficit which we need to work through. So what is important for this board to address is that we have to continue the plan that we have right now because we were able to get to a better situation than we would have been otherwise and we need to continue that.

There we felt good about where we are, but we have a lot further to go.

Can we have a point of clarification on this document?

She's going to continue with the presentation.

20,600,000 at the bottom and that's listed as a structural deficit.

Call for a recess.

Identify what

Time to recess.

Mister Brekstra, can we have a roll call to establish quorum, please?

Present.

Here.

Present.

Director White? Present. Present. Director Barry?

Present.

Director Hutchinson?

Present.

Director Thompsons, absent. Vice President Bachelor?

Here.

And President Brauhard? Here. Form present.

Thank you. I'd like to remind everyone that we will first hear the presentation. There will be ample time for public comments and ample time for board comments. But we need to hear the entire presentation. Thank you.

Miss Gardner?

Thank you. I'll continue. So, excuse me. We've for the plan, we have grouped it in three buckets. So we have the actions from the financial stabilization implementation plan, which was approved 2526 and the work that we've done there.

What we would like and what we are bringing forward or bringing I should say bringing back from previous plans. And then another that's gone across all plans which we'll talk about. Next. So if we look at this is what we brought to the board and the board approved and had us taking action on. And the work that we did to reduce for the general fund and has helped us to get to where we are now.

We don't forget we started with about a $100,000,000 deficit and we are in much better shape. So it is true that a lot of the, not a lot, but much of the work that happened was about using restricted dollars first and that is actually shown up in previous plans. It's not new. It is something that the board we had talked about doing before. It was just a matter of taking care of it.

So when we used restricted dollars first, it is moving expenses to restricted dollars where it is allowable. We did not do anything where where it would not be in line with the restrict the rules around those restricted dollars. We the, I don't wanna really go through all of them, but I'll name a few. The feasibility study for NPS, we've gotten far with that. We have one NPS now that will come forward to the board that wants to work with us next year and then another the following year.

One thing that's been on plans that we're still working towards is the centralization of materials and services. So we did not get any savings from that this year, but it is a primary focus coming up. And I'll name also the TK hubs which is a revenue generating process that we're working on. We have two TK hubs that will be opening up this year and we're excited about that work. We did not name funding there because we wanna just be sure about the numbers of students.

But we are confident that that's gonna help us in our budget but we just were being a little conservative on putting the numbers there. Diana Sherman talked about the shifts of small schools into SNC, so you can see there. And the other thing is that we did reduce, we had staff reductions. So we did quite a bit of reductions in employees and we had about 25,000,000 in savings. And one thing to note and you see it in red is that we're still working on our actuals.

So this is not the actuals. We're going through our actuals now and then our auditor will be looking at that as well. So and just to note to the board, we will continue into the next year on the actions that you've already approved for us to work towards. And so in 2627 we're showing you where we believe, how much we believe we could do in those years. And then you'll see on the use of restricted dollars first, we're not anticipating having to do more of that because we've we've aligned a lot of that now.

On to the next. So these are actions that are previously approved by the board and we took we stepped back and we looked at all of the previous plans and pulled out some that we know either we didn't completely finish or that we believe could, you know, have some more work to help us with our budget. So you can see we put the plan on the left side so you can see where it was prior and that this is work that we would intend to do come coming up this year to help us with the 30,000,000 that we need to look towards. And finally here, it was just two. Miss Asada actually named one about the delaying the start of new programs and initiatives.

And to explain that a little bit more, it's to look at and it came up also when we talked about the LCAP, but what we need to do is slow down on bringing in new new initiatives without knowing how the current ones are working. So that's really what that is about. And it's not to not to say that we we won't, but we need to see what is working because we can't do as we know we can't do everything, but we need to name it. And the other about management positions, this has always been a point of contention where we need, you know, we have what some believe is more management. So we'll do a study across schools in central office looking at the structure, the management structure throughout.

And

so we for twenty five-twenty six, the actions that we've taken has generated 92,300,000 for the general fund. And we can show, we keep a doc, we keep documented list of everything. So if asked, we can provide that. The next, and but I wanna say that's, and again, we're doing our actuals. So that is before doing the actuals.

And then into '26, '27, we're identifying 41.5. And the projected savings target for the fiscal year in the general fund and then 13,000,000 in restricted. And it's more than what we need because you don't know we don't know for sure that we can get that amount obviously. This is what we believe we can is looking at it but as an example when you're laying as an example, when you have when you're looking at management positions and we put an estimate of what we think could how much we can save in that. But we don't know at that time is it gonna be vacancies there?

The cost would be different than if somebody was in there fully with full benefits is what I'm naming. So but we do have that that there. And so the slide is black, I'm not quite sure why. But this is here to say to the board that we'd like you to look at our current actions, what we're carrying forward, and support the work that we have been doing going into the following year so that we can get to a district that isn't doing this every year. And this is just about our timeline.

We're gonna tonight we're talking about adopting our budget. We'll bring back updates on our how this implementation plan is going. So we plan on doing that throughout next year. So you will hear about it frequently. And and then we'll be back in the fall doing quarterly reporting.

Thank you.

Can I now please get a a point of clarification before any public comment or board comment? We heard in this presentation a $20,000,000 structural deficit. We heard a $30,000,000 deficit, and the background says we're gonna pass a balanced budget. And the budget coming up for adoption later today says an $8,000,000 surplus. So those all can't be true at the same time.

Can we please at least frame this in what we are saying our current position is when we look at next year's budget? Is it balanced? Is there a deficit? Is it still the $30,000,000 deficit that miss Garg just referenced and that mister Nguyen brought up on June 3? What is the position for next year's budget?

Thank you. We have a $22,000,000 structural deficit. We have 30,000,000 that we need as a plug or a balancing solutions so that and when we have a 30,000,000 balancing solutions and you have 22,000,000 structural deficit, we've put the 30,000,000 into the budget. We'll leave you the 7,000,000 as what seems like a surplus because we have to cut the 30, which is absolutely correct, and everything that we have done in our budget is right. It's in the SACS forms.

We can't type it over. We can't manipulate it. Our county office has looked at our budget. They will come back again in September, and you'll see at that point that it's all correct.

I I just wanna understand correctly. If I heard that right, if you overlay the deficit or the plug as you called it with the structural deficit, that leaves $8,000,000 which is being perceived as a surplus. Did I repeat back what you said correctly? Because I've never heard anything like this and I really need an answer to this question And I'm a I'm a little bit shocked here. So what is our position for next year?

No such thing as a plug. No such thing as a structural deficit when we're talking about a budget deficit, and the documents say a balanced budget and a surplus. What is our position for next year's budget? Is it a deficit? Is it a surplus?

Is it balanced? And how much?

Yes. I I answered. I think I I answered. Absolutely.

Are there any other board questions?

No. Was my point of clarification. Those aren't my questions. So if we're to question time after I got that clarification, I'm ready

to go. But or do

you wanna do public comment before board comment?

I'm going to take board questions first. Director Lauten. Yep. Director Williams? Okay.

Director Berry?

Thank you for the presentation. And I was asking President Brohard what one round meant because I have five questions, so I don't know if I can ask them all right now. The first thing that I want to say is that I appreciate the plan because, you know, we've been talking

about it for a long

time and I feel like this is approaching what we've asked for. And for me, the vote on the budget is dependent on my understanding of the stabilization plan. And one thing I wanna pull out to highlight that is that in the memo it says, you know, or in I think it's actually in the presentation, it says the budget does not equal fiscal completion and that the budget reflects the plan. And so to me, there is no one without the other. So a lot of my questions are so that I understand what's happening with the plan.

The first question is around the use of the word target. So when you use target, are those estimates? Are those firm or aspirational numbers? And depending on how you answer the follow-up question is like what are the assumptions upon which those targets are based?

So the target it's funny when you say I'm trying to hold all the question in my head. The target, it is a target and it's an estimate because we have to estimate how much we think we can get on the target number. And, what was the second part of your question? Sorry.

So, if it is an estimate, what data, evidence, information, insight are driving especially that that total the 41.5. Okay.

You want me to I can go back. But because I mean each one is a different you look at it differently because they're different actions.

And on the assumption slide, a lot of it focuses on revenue and not expenditure and so I'm primarily asking about the expenditure assumptions.

Okay. But I'm gonna pull it up so I can what were you looking for, director Berry?

So sorry. I'm talking about right now, if for instance, go on slide 18 and it says 92,300,000 in the general fund that we've taken action on. I have a question about that, but I'll put a plug in it.

Okay.

And then the 41,500,000 projected savings target for next next fiscal year. And at the beginning of this document, there's a list of dozens of items of solutions that we plan to implement Right. To, you know, generate this number here. And so I'm my wondering question is about how you got to 41.5, not just because you, you know, implementing TK hubs or, you know, shifting dollars here, but what are the other assumptions that make you think that we can get 41,500,000 through the collective of

each one of these actions. And forgive me if I'm not understanding which but it is through each one of these actions.

So Okay. So let's use another example. Okay. So ADA on the presentation, which is more revenue than expenditure but use it as an example, it's flat for three years. Why do you think in enrollment's gonna be flat for three years?

Oh, okay. Because this is it. Because I I was we were trying to be conservative. So we said that we were looking for because we're trying to stay conservative in our numbers. We've in the past said that I don't want to say in the past, but we've given numbers about we can cut x amount and it was more than we would get to.

So taken looked at each one and when I say that, I'm trying to give an example. Like, for the contracts, for this the freeze. I looked at what we everything that was spent in contracts in the last couple years. How much we actually held on that review of 15 to 25,000. We went back and looked.

How many in the last because we actually only did it for about five months. So how many were we able to, you know, hold back and why? And then by looking at that to think about, okay, if it's looking the same, what how much do we think we could save in that regard? So each one we're looking at closely. I feel like I'm not answering you.

Or yeah. Another example

Okay.

Is the management positions.

Mhmm.

And man look the assessment of the management structure both school site and central office.

Yes.

So, know, what are the questions you're gonna be asking to evaluate that that make you think that the exploration is going to yield cost savings?

Okay. Looking at the all the management positions in central office in the departments, how many people are reporting to each? Are they in the right what's the leveling that you do? Is there more management in a department? Is there managers and that's it?

And why? Does the classification need to change? It's more of like a classification study. You also can look at schools where they have APs, community school man I hate to name positions because it doesn't mean we're gonna be getting rid of, but some schools might have TSAs, APs, community school managers. This is work we've done before.

And then see what what is needed at the school sites as far as management level positions.

Okay. One more example.

Sure.

School site reductions. Is that a flat school site reduction or are there certain things that you will propose?

We we would propose. Okay. And that's yeah.

Can I keep going, or should I let someone go and then come back?

Well, let's do a second round, we'll get you on the second round. Okay. That's okay. Director Batchelor?

No questions at this time. Oh, I do have one question, I apologize. I was trying to get something else done. Superintendent, can you look at slide number six? There are strategies listed there that are previous strategies.

Which of those strategies is currently underway at this moment and which are on hold?

Currently we're looking at, at this point, the curriculum adoptions. Not doing any new we are not doing any curriculum adoptions as was stated by doctor Aguilera. We also have been looking at our I know our consultant contracts, they are being reviewed regularly. We in addition to that, we are looking at our staff attendance, student attendance, looking at leaves. We in addition to that, we have been reviewing actually our overtime.

How are we addressing needs that we have and how we can work smarter so that we don't have overtime. We are also have been looking at our our health benefits costs in addition to that. We currently, as a part of scenario three, we are as are you talking about just this particular?

Just this slide, yes.

Okay. Mhmm.

And then we've also looked at the reduction of positions at school sites in terms of where we have had one time funding or not. We've looked at what the needs are and this is something that if you we'll be looking at later on tonight, each of the school site plans. The SPSAs are very specific in terms of what the school feels that they need. And we're looking at those in terms of where we have overlap. So those are the kinds of things that we're evaluating at every school site.

Thank you so much. That's it, thank you.

Director Smith? Okay. Director Hutchinson? Oh, sorry. Director Smith.

Apologies.

Just wanna say you're gonna get hounded with a lot of questions.

So take a deep breath and Thank you, please. If you need

a moment to answer, take a moment to answer because we're trying to we're trying to uncover just in a time of I just wanted to I just want us to be moral. In a time of so much confusion, we're looking for an answer and a reason for the confusion, and you're a person who could provide us with answers. And I can see it's getting stressful. That's why I say this. So

Thank you.

And that's also just a heads up for us to, you know, we can ask our questions but let's, know, we're humans.

Thank you. Director Hutchinson.

Yes. Thank you. I honestly don't know if I'm more angry, frustrated, or embarrassed right now. So we just have to to refocus and bring some reality back to things. So we need to remember that superintendent Sadler promised to put a fiscal solvency plan before the board by February 22.

We need to remember in January, that's why h y a was hired, we were told to help develop a fiscal solvency plan. If we go back to scenario three in December, we need to remember scenario three, which didn't have details and came out of the blue, said that we needed to make a hunt or $27,000,000 in cuts this year and a $103,000,000 in cuts for next year. Since scenario three in December, we've added a new SEIU contract and a new OEA contract. And on top of it, we know we've overspent by more than $60,000,000 this year this year above the adopted budget. So, I mean, there's a page right here that says we carry a deficit into twenty twenty six, twenty seven.

The budget presentation that will come next says there's a surplus. The memo at the start of this says there's a balanced budget. I can't believe I just heard it repeated back to me that there's a $30,000,000 plug and a '22 and a $2,022,000,000 dollar structural deficit, and that produces an $8,000,000 surplus on paper. I heard audible laughs from the audience. And what I've realized in the last week, especially in talking with folks, actually, I don't think anyone up here even understands the terms and where to find the proper number.

So we need to understand when we're talking about the budget, and we use the term budget deficit or surplus, we are only talking about the unrestricted number. Just like when we talk about the reserve for economic uncertainty, that is only unrestricted. It restricted dollars aren't included in our official numbers to the state, a surplus or deficit. It is only unrestricted, which means it's impossible to have a deficit and a surplus at the same time because all of those terms refer to the same fund by definition in California. And to hear that the person who has been recently promoted to head budgetary policy in our numbers can't explain this and and stated that because we have two deficits overlaying each other, it means it shows a surplus.

I'm I'm not sure what else to do. But like I told everyone, if you knowingly put forward fraudulent numbers in the budget, that means you are committing fraud. And this is very serious because we're talking about a billion dollars. And this is the kind of oversight that we that we have. This is the plan that was supposed to be done months ago that doesn't do anything.

And just lastly for this round, to see a list of numbers with decimals to the tenth and say that's millions and things, and it doesn't correspond to anything. In here, says we've made 42,000,000 in cuts for next year. We came into the school year knowing we needed to make 75,000,000, and we know now it's a lot higher. So again, I ask, do we have a budget deficit or a surplus for the 2627 budget? Because if we have a deficit, it's not a balanced budget, and it's automatic that the state steps in.

And if people have changed numbers in these documents to make it look like a surplus, especially since I put them on notice at my meeting with them on Monday, knowingly putting forward fraudulent numbers is committing fraud which is illegal in California in school districts. Proceed carefully.

There is no effort to commit fraud. There's

specific Superintendent Sadler, do we have a deficit or a surplus or a balanced budget for 2627, the budget that you're presenting later? Because your person just made a presentation saying both things are true at the same time. And I asked you at the last meeting over and over to explain which numbers we were using, and you couldn't do that. So somebody please answer the question. And I put everyone on notice.

So when you vote and do this anyway, it doesn't really matter what you say to me. There's gonna be some explaining to other people when they look at the numbers because you've been put on notice.

Actually, our staff person, Ryan Nguyen, would like to give you some specifics.

Good evening, board members and member of the public. I'm Ryan Nguyen, current CFO for Oakland Unified School District. I'm scheduled to speak a little bit about the the expenses, but since director Hutchison has some question regarding the ending balance, I will walk through a mini reconciliation of how we arrive at the, both the REU and a a a look like a a a additional reserve. So let me share my screen real quick.

Excuse me. Point point of order, that's that's not actually

to answer

your point of order. He's gonna talk about the budget later. I was talking about the fiscal vitality plan and what was said here. And so that's not what I asked. I don't need anyone to go through that.

If you wanna go out of order and present something now but my only question is for everyone. I can ask it of him. How can you have a surplus and a deficit at the same time?

I can show you. I will show you right now. Okay. So, thank you, for that. Let me, go first here to share my screen.

Okay. Does everybody see what's on the screen currently? Okay. This is form o one. This is a c d

So, again, point of point of order. This is the budget, the next item. That's when it's appropriate to bring it up.

We're on

the fiscal vitality plan. Everyone watching doesn't have any idea.

Madam He's attempting to answer your question.

Yes. Could you

He's answering your questions. Let's see if let's see if he

would like to show you.

If you have a follow-up after that, that would be appropriate.

Yes. It all is related, and sometimes there's a lot of, dimension, a lot of, variables that we have to keep track of. And, I I do understand sometimes it can be a little difficult. So form one, this form, a software from the California Department of Ed, it's a a SACS reporting. We don't we can't touch this.

We can't touch the underlining programming. Basically, takes data from our system of record, Escape, pops it into, this software, and it spits up these financial report. And the financial reports uses are differ, for different purposes. Right now, we're, specifically looking at form zero one. So form zero one on my screen here, you can see different columns.

On the left side is our estimated actual, what's gonna happen, by year end. This is just still just budget. And then on 2627, this is our adopted budget, what we're trying to adopt. So going top down, we have our revenue. And since we we're speaking about expenses, I won't go into details there.

When we scroll down, here are our total expenses. Right? And when you look at books and supplies, you see this 81,000 there. Take note of that 81,000. So we have our revenue plus our our expenses.

We come up with access, and efficiency of revenue before, financing and other uses. So as you can see, structurally

Wait. You need to scroll down to net increase for unrestricted, which is 7,900,000. That shows the surplus here.

I I will get that to that, sir. I just wanna make sure that, I, confirm a knowledge of certain items before I move forward, or else we'll go in circle and we'll just go back and forth. And so, so that's a surplus. And then as we scroll down, there are nonoperational, things that we have to pay for. And, what are those things?

Well, there are about 3,900,000 of, how would I say, this contribution to different programs, different funds that we have to do. The the our school board directed us to fund major maintenance. So we it used to be 3,000,000. It was reduced down to 1,000,000 per board guidance. And then what else makes up this 3,900,000?

It's a risk management. So there might be other self insurance transaction that the risk the self insurance fund cannot fully fund. And so we will project to to to partially fund for those. And then what's what what else is in this uses and sources? Well, special ed.

What is in this special ed? Well, there's a 147,000,000 or or so, and this actually breaks it out breaks out a little bit more. So just take note that the the combined balance is about a 151,000,000 that unrestricted fund zero one must pay that are not really operational. It's more like uses and and finance, which is the why the SAC software has this category. And then as we go down to the next item, this is the item director Hutchison would likes to point out here.

Why do we have a 7,900,000 net increase in fund balance? And then where is the ending fund balance? Well, if we start with the ending fund balance as projected for '25, 26 of 29,000,000 and after revenue and and expenses and uses nets us 7,900,000, we therefore end up with 37,600,000. That 37,600,000, well, the the state department says, hey. For your school district of a certain size, about 29,000 ADA, 30,000 ADA, you must put set aside 2%.

And so in addition to the 2%, our board has directed staff to also set up an additional 1%. So that what is that total? We calculated out. It's a total of expenses and uses comes to about almost $30,000,000. And so we set aside 29,940,000 for our REU.

What's left is 7.5. Now going back, the question is how how could we end with a positive in addition to the fund balance if there is a deficit?

No. The question is, doesn't this document then show what you just read over that there's a 7,900,000 plus dollar surplus next year on these books?

Yes. And when we

Thank you. Wait, wait. Thank you. That's the answer to the question. And that was after June 30, you told us, on June 3, you told us that there's a $30,000,000 deficit.

And I'm getting And

I was looking at the same number from the same fund.

Please let him finish.

Yes, sir. I will Alright. And and I'm answering, where this 7,900,000.

No. It's good. Do we have a surplus or a deficit?

We have a surplus if the board vote for, this budget plan to go through and the additional $30,000,000 that must be must be reduced from the budget for twenty six point seven.

And isn't the reason wait. Isn't the reason we need to reduce $30,000,000? Because that's listed as a deficit. And isn't that minus $30,000,000 also listed in the unrestricted?

Yes. Mister Rivera? Madam president. Sir. I Ryan, would you hold on for a second, please?

One second, mister Rivera. The

the appropriate parliamentary protocol at the moment is is to allow the staff member to do the presentation. And when there is board member round for questions, then it would be appropriate for all of the questions that a board member has and they allocated time to be asked when the board member has the floor. It is a breach of protocol to keep interrupting without recognition and without being in the broad protocol of board member allocated time to ask the questions. And we want clarity of answers, so I would strongly suggest that we observe the protocol.

Thank you, mister Regstrom. Can you continue, mister Renaud?

Yes. Thank you, ma'am. So now going back to this reconciliation so so we can clearly see where the additional seven

Oh, your screen is not sharing. Do you wanna Yes.

Let me see. It should be sharing. Can you see my screen now?

Yeah. There you go. Thank you.

Okay. So I made a screenshot of form o one on here, and then I extracted data directly from our escape accounting system. And now we can go down and verify some number. First of all, row 13 here, you see a 183,000,000. That ties perfectly to the certificated, a 183,000,000.

And if we were to do that, then everything all the numbers were tied. But the number that we want to look at specifically is this $81,000. Right? Why is there just $81,000 in in, supplies? And so of that 81,000, what is this object 4,300 that shows negative 4,000,346?

So lock that number in your mind. Now I'm gonna show you where that 40 the 4,300,000. Okay? So when we go to the next tap over, we will see a reconciliation of or a itemization of the related budgets. The 400,000 object code, as you can see here, is comprised of what?

The 4,300. If if you look at row cell e 27, you'll see that 4,300,000 there. That 4,300,000 ties exactly to the 4,300,000 roll up. And what makes up this 4,300,000? Well, this $44,300,000 is comprised of supplies and books and supplies for all unrestricted resources.

That is resources zero zero zero through one nine nine nine. So that when you look at it, we go, oh, there's two items that are that are very important for us to take a look at. There's the four object four three nine four and four object 4395. Object three four nine four is our labor negotiated, set aside to pay for the OEA, contract. And so we put in there, there's a 20,000,000.

And then we go, oh, where is the 30,000,000 budget cut that that needs to happen? Well, that's where we put in object four three nine five of 28,000,000. Why is it 28,000,000 only? Well, it's because this is for all unrestricted resource. Therefore, we have to break up the unrestricted resource again.

We're going from summary down to detail down to detail. Okay? Kinda like an onion if if if you wanna visualize things. So now that we're done we're we're gonna break this unrestricted resource open, what is resource zero zero zero, GP unrestricted, that we have to have to manage. But when we look at the 4,300, opcode and we go top down again, we see that the budget reserve for OEA here is 16,000,000 on Row 46.

Okay? So this has been set aside. It's in the budget. We're gonna pay it next year, once the system updates and once payroll and every other processes are are in line. Then the next line is our object 4395.

This is where the $30,000,000 shows up. And so if we're sale the question is how do we end up with a positive fund balance if there's a deficit? Well, because there's if we were to cut 30,000,000 from our budget, then we would end up with this amount, 10,000,000. And so when you, you know, when you look at the resource zero zero zero, oh, we have to cut about 10,000,000 net. Well, that's because in resource zero zero two and through one nine nine nine, the other portion of the unrestricted, there's actually 6,000,000 in there.

Okay? When you add this table d, basically takes the information in summary from these categories and it adds it up. Well, resource zero zero net, we have to cut about 10,000,000. And then resource what do call it? Zero zero two to one nine nine nine, it's 4,300,000.

That four thirty four million, let's do a real double check to see if our number is correct. We look at the detail. We look at the calculation above. The variance is zero. The 4.3999 ties back to our summary which ties back to our forms here.

And where is all this data? We can take a look at it. Anybody can run well, anybody with the with axe authorized access to our system, Escape can run this data, this report, and our the the county office and the CDE actually gets a copy of our our our our data dataset, data file for our SACS and they can they can see all this data. So if I were to run it for objects one through six, I will see that 81,000. When I run it for for 4,300, I see that 4,300,000 again.

When I run it for the of of 4,300 specifically just for resource zero zero zero, I see it there. And then you can see the the search criteria down here. So it's ran by Ryan Nguyen at 1PM today. Funnel one object 4300 resource zero zero zero. The 10,000,000 is there.

The 30,000,000 cut that that is needed. The reserve for the OEA is there. And then what about the other unrestricted? Well, same concept. We go fund one, object, resource, and we see that 6,000,000.

Net those together down here, and you get your four three three three, flow it back into the main, financial report, and you see the, there. And then this all all these other assumption here, we've already, presumed that they're accurate. Right? Because, you know, LCFF is audited, federal revenue, state revenue is audited, local revenue is audited. We even have various committee managing this.

Therefore, the certificated, expenses are are being reviewed. Our program teams are allocated funds to spend on on certain programs. They drive this. Imagine we have 200 resources, about 200 program, you multiply that out exponentially, you come up with about, you know, 50,000, 60,000 account codes. All that flows in and becomes this summary financial statement for us to to review.

And if you believe that the that the CDSAC software is accurate and you believe that the revenue is projected accurately, which will be audited by the way, then we have to take the expenses projected by staff, various programs. We have, 80 some odd, school site, and we have 40 additional, departments. We have about a 120, cost center here. And they, you know, between five to 10 people each in the those department coming up with all this data of which the business office aggregates and report on. So now you have your revenue, you have your expenses, you have your ending what do you call it?

We get ending fund balance projected at 2526 plus Missed it. Projected increases in twenty six zero seven. You end up with the what what what we see here. I hope that's clear, and I can take questions.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. We'll have a second round of questions. No. We started.

Director Barry had a question.

Yes.

Okay. So my next question and I do have four more after this. It's important. So the memo, it says there's a line that says the district can't rely on one time measures to carry ongoing cost and so I want to understand the ongoing value of the use of restricted dollars first. And so what I see in the budget, and this is related to the plan, but what I see in the budget is that the $92,300,000 actioned in 2526, it's broken out in the plan.

How much of the 92,300,000 action in 2526 is one time versus ongoing? And what I see is that a lot of it, that 43,300,000 is this, you know, use of restricted funds first strategy. But the memo also says that these shifts are not additive to ongoing structural reductions And the number for 2627 and 2728 is not in the presentation. So I wanna understand the ongoing value of that. I also wanna call out one of the reasons why it was alarming to me is because of that the fall of restricted carryover from seventy nine point five to eighteen point two by 2829.

Thank you. Ryan, do you want to pick that up?

Yes. Sure. Hi there. Okay. So the 93,000,000 from the previous board meetings, I believe in various PowerPoint, we list out what, what balances were, you know, reconciles back to one time funds to reduce actual expenditure in resources zero zero zero through 01/09/1999 for fiscal year twenty five twenty six that would help us end up with about $30,000,000.

Those ship, I can get a detailed itemization for the board at the next meeting. But, essentially, they were for shifting costs, Alt Ed, small school into SNC. Some costs were shifted into professional development block grant. Some were shifted and all of these are compliance costs that are shifted into these restricted fund. Another big another big funding source was net account billing that we can use.

And then, of course, our parcel tax had a lot of carryover that wasn't spent timely. And so the board directed staff to spend down the carryover compliantly. And so we shift the cost into the parcel tax to spend down the cost compliantly. And these are costs that normally would have been charged to these parcel tax. But, you know, for whatever reason, we charge those costs to resource zero zero zero fund o one at the time.

And so, by year end, we're gonna charge it to the these various restricted program, and I can get the, the detailed itemization for the board where needed. Mhmm.

Then two follow-up questions. One, I think it would be helpful to understand what we plan to do when we've implemented that we've exhausted that strategy and we but we still have cost to cover. And then because you mentioned parcel taxes, as I read this it's clear that in per Ryan what you just said, we're leveraging parcel taxes for 2526. But I don't see and hopefully rightly so that there is no plan for 2627 and beyond.

That's correct. Okay.

Two more.

So the 41.5 general fund target for 2627 oh sorry, I asked that one. Can we get the unrestricted structural gap year by year? And I don't need this for today, but this this question and the next one are for the when we come back for forty five day revise. It would also be helpful to see not only that broken down, but how you are how we can interpret the relationship between the 8,000,000 that you know Mike is talking about, but the 36.7, 39.3, 28.7, the 20.6, it's all these numbers and I just want a sentence or a paragraph that conveys the relationship between them. What I hear director Hutchinson saying is that the $8,000,000, it it your point, it's a real number.

But it's only a real number if this board approves this plan. So it seems like the decision before us today is to decide whether we're our level of comfort with that.

Mhmm. Yes.

Director Hutchinson.

Can I ask a question since I haven't done that yet? If we're doing rounds, please. Wanna just clarify the plan for bringing back the updates because I think both you and and mister Nguyen have referenced that these that there'll be updates coming back October 1. I think that lots of I think one piece of good news that you referenced but isn't in the budget yet is that once the state does their final budget adoption, there will be included in our budget some increase in revenues through the special education per pupil increase. There'll be the super COLA and we're only using in this budget 2.87 and most likely it seems like that will be at 4.31 which will be a significant, all of those will be significant increases to our budget, obviously, then reducing our need to, you know, to fully implement some of these items that are in here.

Can you clarify what is the plan to bring those those back to the board and then presumably have another vote as a board about what items we're going to be moving forward with?

Yes. I move that to Tara. Tara, can you speak to the strategic plan? Yeah.

Sure. We can we'll come back to the board. We'll just set a a date in August and then in September. And we'll we'll just come back monthly and we'll go through it.

I think one other thing I just wanna clarify is also around the reduction targets. So for example, one of the things that you know, that obviously I've been spending a lot of time on is around reducing our spending in the kind of within contracts and in the 5 thousands. In the current current budget has a significant reduction in that spending. However, those aren't audited yet. So when I look at the 2627 plan for reducing contracts, is the just to clarify, is that over and above whatever we've reduced this year?

And whatever we've reduced this year will be, again, confirmed and unaudited actuals? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Director Hutchinson?

Yes. Thank you. If we could please put up, I have it as page three of the presentation. It's titled, we carry a deficit into 2627. Now this document very clearly says we carry a deficit into twenty twenty six twenty seven.

Then the first paragraph reads, the first sentence, the 2026 budget is balanced and legally supportable. How is are we carrying a deficit and the budget is balanced? And then it goes on, but the district is not fiscally complete. Now I don't even know what that means, but it's been clear that AI put together this presentation because nobody has been able to talk about what's actually in here. And then it says the multi year projection continue shows continued deficits, and the going notice concern directs ongoing reductions.

The plan must keep moving and that requires board action now. Now if there's a deficit in the budget, especially a deficit in the unrestricted, that means by definition, you do not have a balanced budget. That's what the definition means. That's school budgeting one zero one. That's the law.

So then I look farther down this page and it says net change, 36,700,000. That's not a financial term when it comes to our budget. And I can see what happened. Somebody took the number of total expenditures over total revenues and put that down to some net change. But that's not the number that we track because we track the unrestricted, which makes our reserve.

Then we go further down 20,600,000 structural deficit. What is that? And cited by ACOE as the core structural gap requiring resolution, actually, in their latest letter that they sent us last week about a b 1,200, they cited a $30,000,000 deficit. And then next to it it says out year reductions required, additional reductions needed across multi year projection window. What does that even mean?

What does that even mean? So what I've heard so far is staff agree that you can have a deficit and a surplus at the same time. That's what I've heard repeated back to me. You know, it's really hard to even know what to do with that because, by definition, you can't have both a surplus and a deficit in the same fund. To hear people repeat back to me, if you cut the deficit, then you'll have a surplus.

That's why it's listed like that. And I've been actually tracking budget and in presentations, I think longer, especially in this streak, than anyone else up on here combined. And so this is very basic, and I'm very disappointed, miss Gard, that you said that you can have both a deficit and a surplus. I'm very disappointed that the CFO said that because on June 30, he said there's a deficit. And now the budget document that people will be voting on later today shows an $8,000,000 surplus.

That means these numbers are wrong, and I've tried to tell people that they're wrong.

We still

need hear that was supposed to be done to even make the budget and to develop Excuse me. Director Barry was allowed to speak almost five minutes extra on top of her time. And so this is a game that people are trying to play. And, this was developed by AI. It doesn't even make sense.

This isn't how we list stuff. And I'm waiting for somebody to please tell me that we can't have a deficit and a surplus at the same time. Thank you.

If it's Okay. If there are no other board questions, I'd like to hear from the public. Okay. So do we have public comment?

Yes. We have three registered speakers. Carol Delton, Leanna Powell, and Asolo Lobala.

I'm sorry. How many speakers are there?

Three speakers.

Two minutes each.

Good evening, everyone. So, I would just like to call out that, yes, this budget wasn't as early as the much ignored board policy states. However, it was the earliest budget in at least three years, and the numbers were placed before you several weeks ago. I understand that in my household, we could have a structural deficit because we know that there are ongoing expenses and yet we have the means of covering them for a short time, or we have a means of rebudgeting to meet those expenses, which I think is what's happening here. I have a couple of specific questions.

One is, the 11,000,000 plus in projected, savings and so on. Is that additional to the 30,000,000 or is that part of chopping away at the 30,000,000? That's one. Second, that I asked for an e comment, we've acknowledged that there is more ongoing money coming from the state and that is ongoing both restricted and unrestricted because the bulk of unrestricted and restricted money is also ongoing. In addition to the COLA, there is ongoing special ed additional special ed money.

Is there a minimum number that I I know that this team wants to be very conservative and not to speak out of terms in terms of projecting numbers. Lastly, I do want to address the parcel taxes because they weren't listed in this plan, although they were listed previously and were in fact used by the previous CBO to balance last year's budget. I know that was very upsetting to the parcel tax committees at the same time as, mister Nguyen said, appropriate expenses should be charged to the parcel taxes, and the parcel taxes could be doing more to the parcel tax committees could be doing more to, impinge less on the general fund in terms of how they structure their meetings and how they structure their contributions to the agenda. Measure g one should be used as a model for the other committees because they, do it in a an extremely efficient way. Measure h and n, I'm I'm not sure that the district can sustain them meeting as much as they do in a time when we are, reducing other things.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

I'm confused. And I really try to listen. But clarity and explanation is not what I can receive and get an answer to some of the concerns. But I did hear something that said, in order for this budget to be balanced, you're gonna have to take an action to eliminate $30,000,000. And then I heard another time, $8,000,000 has to be eliminated.

So at this point, you do not have a balanced budget. You have the potential for a budget being balanced if further actions are be are to be taken. That's what I understand. I also understand that it is it is not enough to stabilize the budget. You have to produce what is called because the city does this.

You have to sustainability. So you can present something tonight that says this is where we are and where we are we're fine. But you have to go further than that and you have to produce this the sustainability plan where you stay solvent or you stay without producing another deficit. And so you're not finished until you do that. But I do not understand how you can approve something until you take the step to deal with the deficit that you have to deal with.

And I I don't like being in this position because when I'm speaking right now, I'm not sure of myself. So I don't know how y'all have we have board members and I'm not trying to

be

disrespectful, but nobody has demonstrated other than two two three people speaking that you have some kind of understanding of what's going on, but you're gonna vote. So the rest of you that haven't said anything, will you please say something to what is your understanding, and then I can get some kind of collective understanding of what the hell is going on.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Again, hello. I'm Liana, District 6, parent, and the decisions that you make today will absolutely impact my family directly. My kids are in fourth and fifth grade. They're gonna be going into middle school work, but things are already cut, in terms of electives. That was so confusing.

I I I I I plan to come here, you know, after what public information was available. But to see you all sitting here, I don't know how many of y'all have kids in the district currently, but if you were a parent, if you did have kids, this would not be okay. I was over there and I was getting really upset. And over the over the the time that I generally watch this at home, I I try to understand where you all are coming from. And I I see sometimes, Mike, you you get very upset.

But, again, I've heard, I think, you, Patrice, a few for a few budget meetings ask about clarity of this document. And today, looking at this page of that where it says 20,600,000, but reading the Alameda County, the Alameda County Office of Education, it that it doesn't match. And then having whoever that was go on and on and on and on. I have no idea what we're talking about. I would really like to see what you guys actually understand about this.

So maybe, again, like miss Assata said, we can understand. What do you understand? What do you understand? What do you understand? What do you understand about this budget?

Because it doesn't make sense. It does not make sense. And you're playing with our kids' lives. I don't know where you all are from, but I'm from here. I'm running for District 6 because this is BS.

Do something.

President Brujada, we have one additional speaker, Oliver Brennan.

Good evening, Board and community. Oliver Brennan, parent of two. I just have a very quick comment. I listened to a lot of discussion there about the plus eight or the 30,000,000. And I've been debating it with a lot of the community since the last seventy two hours, and none of us understood it then.

And I think finally we might understand it. But the math is pretty simple. There's a claim that we have an $8,000,000 surplus, but you have to subtract the $30,000,000 of yet unassigned cuts. It's really minus $22,000,000 So it really is a $22,000,000 deficit, but we're putting a plug to call it an $8,000,000 surplus. Now I've been following this district's budget cycle for five years now.

And your predecessor in CBO, Lisa Grant Dawson, did come up with some creative ways the last few years to balance the budget. Last year, it was even using ballot money, ballot measure money that was controversial, but at least it was a plan to balance the budget. So we really do not have a surplus. We have a deficit of 22,000,000, and it it requires 30,000,000 of cuts that have yet to be defined. The county have sent us a letter, and they have asked us that if we ratify the AB 1,200 process for OEA tonight, that we should itemize how we're gonna do this 30,000,000.

And by the way, you started with 22,000,000 from the county as the structural deficit. That's where you started, and you came up with $30,000,000 adjustment to get a surplus. You really only needed to come up with $22,000,000 actually of cuts to get to zero instead of getting to plus eight. But we we really do have a deficit, not a surplus. Thank you very much.

Are there any speakers online?

Take a clue. Register speakers.

With that, I'm gonna call the question. Extra, can you I'm going to call the question.

I just wanna name for the record two things, respectfully. I have additional questions. I said at the beginning of this evening that the way I measure the proposed budget is is dependent on my understanding and my comfort with the plan. I would love the opportunity to ask remaining questions. I would also, similar to what I heard in public comment, love to hear for those who care to share.

Speak directly to the request that other board members comment on what they understand about this plan because the public also deserves clarity.

That's noted and we'll call the question.

Thank you, director Berry. I I wanna second those comments, especially since we only received this seventy two hours ago, and we've had no opportunity to ask staff any questions about this document at all.

That's not we did have two by twos.

Two by two was about Mister Mixtar, can you call us proposed budget? So this is again what president Brohard has done, has led us to the last meeting, has made it where there's no engagement. This this packet wasn't even discussed at the last budget and finance committee, and now you can see where people can't even answer basic questions about it. Well, let's set round of questions. The superintendent's plan that's being put in front of us, and we can't even ask questions about it or get clarity.

I'll go ahead and take a recess for five minutes.

Madam madam vice president?

Yes.

I I would recommend you not take the recess. However, you would allow for a second round so that people would have their questions and enforce the board rules of recognition and time limits

Yeah.

To respond and ask questions.

Thank you, mister Eggstrada. I see a motion to to do a second round. I see a second. Can we take a roll call on the vote for a second round? Right.

And the president is no longer chairing the meeting. So I'm gonna go ahead and chair and have a second round, vote on the second round.

True color. Okay. We

we will presume that director Hutchins is it correct to presume that director Hutchinson and director Barry are the makers of the motion for the second round? Okay. If that being the case, without further debate, I'm gonna call the roll on whether or not the board shall have a second round, And it requires four votes to do so. Director Lauder?

Yes.

Director Williams? Yes. Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Barry?

Yes.

Director Vice President Bachelor? No. Okay. Motion's adopted and the second round is off the line.

Thank you. Go ahead, director Barry.

So my first question, and this might be my last. So something was just raised and I just wanna make sure there's clarity for the benefit of the public and the board because numbers are being thrown around. So the $30,000,000 that we're addressing for next year is different than the $20,600,000 deficit cited in the ACOE letter. And so if someone could come to the mic and explain the relationship or the difference between those two numbers. Superintendent,

who from your team would be able to answer that question?

I'm going to ask staff to answer that question.

Greetings, board members. To answer your question, director Barry, the deficit is one and the same. So I'm going to very briefly explain how the budget is working and then if if I may, And then maybe you can clarify that if I'm answering your question. Is that okay?

Sure. And I think with a particular focus on how the plan addresses the 30,000,000 in your how you define it.

Absolutely. So as Ryan explained, I'm gonna try to condense all that explanation into a couple of sentences. Our budget, as we've explained over the last several months, has a deficit. And the deficit grew from I'm gonna take you back to around January, an estimate of around 100 millions. We made a variety of cuts at one point.

We presented the board with about 60 fill $65,000,000 in reductions. And as we got to third interim and budget adoption, we still had a deficit. Two things happened that we mentioned. One, the structural deficit continued and then we had to add the necessary funding for the settlements. So as we finalized the budget, we have two things that that happened.

One, we have a conservative budget that doesn't fully account as as director Lara said, some of the revenues that we're going to get. So we expect to get a little more revenue. We still have a $30,000,000 projected need to make reductions. So if you look

Continue, doctor Frutos. Thank you.

Thank you. 20? Okay. So thank you. So when we look at the budget and we came to the board and said we are gonna have to make a series of ongoing reductions, the original estimate is that we were going to need $30,000,000 because that was the original estimated deficit for 2627.

We did a presentation a few weeks ago when we said we are going to maintain that 30,000,000 because that's the estimated deficit. But at the time, the governor was announcing a better COLA, more money for special education, what is now a grant that will be a a discretionary grant. So if the board remembers, we said even though we're estimating 30,000,000, it might go as low as $18,000,000. So we continue to look at the state's budget adoption to allow us to redefine our deficit and lower it. What happens with that?

Well, if the deficit lowers in a subsequent year, we had originally estimated if you remember, 30,000,000 and 30,000,000 were going to be the necessary cuts. We are estimating now 30,000,000 all the way down to 10,000,000. Now why do we have that 7,900,000 million differential? Because we are still coming to you with a $30,000,000 cut. And I agree, a member of the public said, when you do the math, that comes to about 20 some million.

Absolutely. But right now in the budget, there's a direction to reduce or undeficit the budget by $30,000,000. If the state budget passes as it's predicted right now, when we come to you at the forty five day adoption, that 30,000,000 might be reduced significantly. And I think all of you have made that point that the budget is structurally better than it was when we started the year. So again, to be very clear, we had a $30,000,000 projected deficit for this upcoming year.

That's before the governor announced all these differential numbers that are beneficial to Oakland. If all those pass, we will be coming to you and say, the board makes a decision. If we still cut 30, that means less to cut in the future. But if we could cut less technically, that that's why this is evolving. As the state presents new numbers, our budgets adjust.

But the 30,000,000 is right now in the budget as the structural need to continue to maintain solvency. Now I've heard this, is the budget passable or not? Absolutely. Your budgets have had deficits in the past. You have to

I would like to ask board colleagues to let the presenters speak. Go ahead,

mister That's doctor not true. We've never passed a budget with

a deficit in unrestricted

before. The

state law requires that we're not allowed to do that.

So one of the things that will happen is that the budget when the board decides to approve the budget, it will go to the county. So if something is being done that's inappropriate, the the the they will not approve it. The budget will be audited. If something is wrong, it will show in the audit. As Ryan was explaining, there are a variety of measures to review the budget process that the board will be well aware because you will get an audit report, you will get a letter from the county, and everything that we do is based on the accounting system.

There are no handwritten numbers or anything like that. So, again, to clarify and and was a very good question, director Berry. Right now, there's a $30,000,000 reduction. What is it made of? Well, we have already come to the board and the board directed the staff to continue looking at places where the unrestricted side of the budget paid amounts that should have been paid by other areas.

You had a very good question regarding restricted. What is the strategy of restricted dollars first? That's a forever strategy because if the unrestricted fund pays for what restricted should pay, you'll be back in this situation again. So the recommendation is when something should be paid with restricted, it's legally allowed and the standard is very simple. It's an accounting standard.

Whatever program benefits from a service, that program should be paying for that if the funding is allowed. Now we know there are some funds, and we'll use deferred maintenance where not enough money comes in. Well, then the board makes the decision to use unrestricted dollars to pay for that needed service. And there are others, of course. But that is a strategy that I think has served the district well.

It wasn't implemented before. I don't know why. And as you know, and it was clarified by our colleagues from instruction, you were building very significant balances on the restricted side. And in some cases, there's a concern that that money can be recalled. Now you've taken a strategy where that is being adjusted.

Now, at no point should a restricted dollar be used that's not authorized by the granting authority. So it all has to be legal and followed. But if a num if a dollar is used for a restricted purpose, the restricted amount should pay for it so that you don't build the reserves that the district had been building for many years. So the strategy has changed. Great.

Thank you.

Last question. Your your

three minutes is up though. And we had other time board

was him answering my

Correct. But we have other board colleagues that also had questions. So director Hutchinson, you had a follow-up question?

Extremely rude and disrespectful to your colleagues on the board.

You have a question.

Excuse me. You recognize me. I don't need you to interrupt me anymore.

A question.

Excuse me. I haven't too much clocked up, and my colleagues should be restarting. Are you gonna keep interrupting me, or am I

allowed to have my time? Clock. Excuse me. I said restart the clock.

I don't really care what you say. The whole point is you shouldn't say anything once you acknowledge me. You you can go ahead and take a seat. So when we when we were in December with the first interim report Directed by president. Were excuse me.

This is my time.

Excuse me.

This is my time. Restart

the clock.

So when we got our first interim report in December and scenario three, and we were told there was a $103,000,000 deficit. That $103,000,000 deficit back then, that was a deficit in the unrestricted because that's the definition of the term. So you can go back and check. When we approved this year's budget, we did not have a deficit in the budget. We approved a budget where we could cover our reserve and we only had 300,000 above our reserve in the unrestricted.

We knew we had no flexibility, but it was a balanced budget. Then we overspent by over 60,000,000 this year. Then this whole placeholder plug, $30,000,000, let's take a step back. We know that the deficit is not $30,000,000 even. That's not not how budget numbers work.

On the second interim, they listed the number as $36,000,000 even. I challenge you to look at the SACS reports, the budget report, and find any other number on there that's even to the million. So either it's an estimate or a made up number to begin with. Now, I've sat through every budget and financial presentation in OUSD since 2011, every single one, every committee one, every single one. The fact that we're being told now that we have a deficit and a surplus at the same time, I it's hard for me to even explain how crazy that is because anyone saying that shows they're either lying directly or they have no understanding how the budget works.

Because you can't have a surplus and a deficit at the same time. You don't have on your documents, well, if we make $30,000,000 cuts, we have a $8,000,000 surplus. That's just not true. That's not what the documents show. The documents show an $8,000,000 surplus, and there's no notation of a $30,000,000 deficit.

That's what the budget numbers today show. I can show you how the expenditures for unrestricted, which at the June 10 on the multi year projection, two weeks ago on that document, it said we were projecting expenditures in unrestricted next year of 430,000,000. Now tonight, the projection is a little more than 370,000,000. Somebody lowered the amount of total expenditures in unrestricted for no reason and no justification, and the numbers don't add up. And because they lowered that one specific number, when they reran the budget, it popped out a $8,000,000 surplus.

Because you can't have a deficit and a surplus at the same time. I had to meet with them all and show them. Nobody wanted to listen. And then we have this show tonight where I have staff and a consultant up here proving they're either a liar or don't know what they're talking about for our billion dollar budget. Thank you.

Director Lotta, director Williams, board colleagues, you can cede your time to director Berry for her last question. Thank you. Go ahead, director Barry, for your last question.

My last question was just spoke to the sustainability point, which helps assess the merit of some of the solutions in the plan. The ultimate question being to what extent do the strategies of the solutions in this plan contribute to reducing the structural deficit? I understand that the use of restricted funds is an ongoing practice, But per the per the report provided by staff, it does it is not additive to the structural deficit work. So I want to understand how the work we're approving or not approving today is advancing the longer term work that we need to do.

Superintendent, is there anyone from your team that will answer that question? Yes. Doctor. Frutas, I see you coming up. Thank you.

Do wanna say while he's coming up, I do wanna say one of the things that was discussed earlier was that we are relooking at our operations, our staffing, our scope of work, and required by individual staff. And so we're looking at new ways of getting the work done at our school sites and in central office. And it's gonna require that as well as looking at specific ways that we're spending monies. But we have to look at our operations. There's a lot of work that has to be done to get there.

So it's not just one thing. It's not just one budget action, it is also the operations, it's also figuring out what our priorities are, it also it means looking at the achievement of our students and what's working and what's not working. There's there's so many factors that are gonna drive the ultimate decisions that are gonna be made in the future.

Doctor Frutos, you can add.

I think director Barry, your question is probably the most important important question for budget development for ongoing years. And and there's a reason for it. The structural imbalance on our budget has been reduced, but not eliminated. And we mentioned this to the board when we started working on making reductions and the settlements came. We used the word bifurcation at the time.

The effort was let's pay the salaries, but continue working on the structural deficit and does this need to make reductions. And the reason why the amount is a solid amount is it's an amount that we're bringing to the board for approval to reduce 30,000,000. It's it's not an amount that's computed in any other way than a solution that continues the process. To your point, our ongoing solvency, If the board continues the stabilization measures that have been implemented since at least December, January, two things will happen. If the state budget is as good as we've estimated, The board will be able to have some flexibility over the next couple of years for implementing programs that are desirable, even with the reductions you have.

However, because our enrollment has contracted and unless we have a spike up, you will continue having a challenge with your staffing. And that's something that all of you have commented on on on different times. So as difficult as as it sounds for those of us that are working with your staff, some of these will have to be governance questions and governance decisions. Does it does do we keep the same number of support systems? You heard from our colleagues in in the academic side that significant positions were cut that were serving a good purpose.

And it doesn't matter if they just served for one year or for many years. It will be ultimately a governance decision to say what what gets compressed if our attendance continues to decline. Now, we we the the board put together something that hopefully will create an attractor, and we will bring some students with the TK hubs. That will be very apparent the first couple of weeks when all the scheduling is done and the placement of students and staffing. So when we say that coming back to you and informing you is important, it's incredibly important in a lot of categories.

Are we overstaffed? Do we have the students? Did the state budget pass in a favorable way? You have three factors that will significantly color the amount of cuts that you need to make in the next couple of years. So I'm I'm hoping that's that's helpful, director Barry.

It's it really is based on some unknown factors right now, but all of which are accounted by making that potential reduction of 30,000,000. Which by the way, has been addressed in a lot of categories by coming to you and saying we used the wrong kind of funding to pay for things in the past.

Thank you. Doctor Brohard, any questions? Alright. I will go ahead and call a question.

On the motion to approve the financial stabilization plan per the resolution that's in the packet. Director Lotta?

Yes.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? No. Director Barry?

Yes.

Vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

And president Burhard?

Yes.

Motion is approved.

To item k four, the twenty twenty six twenty seven fiscal year district budget, All Funds, Deputy Superintendent, Business and Operations. Before we start, I wanna begin by thanking the finance team and Superintendent Sadler for the tremendous amount of work that has gone on into this proposed budget before us tonight. We are a long way from where we were when we began.

I'd like to make a motion to add this item. Sorry. To approve

the There's a

motion to approve the budget? Yes.

Motion to approve, yes.

Second. Sorry about that.

Okay. Got it.

Okay. We're a long way from where we were when we began this work in October 2025. At that time, the board adopted budget scenarios aimed at achieving a positive certification from the county and moving toward a budget that better centered the needs of OUSD's 34,000 students. We also hired HYA to assist with this effort. Together, the finance team, the superintendent, and the board have made significant changes to OUSD's budgeting practices.

That work has resulted in a qualified second interim and now a positive third interim certification. This is an important accomplishment and reflects the months of hard work and difficult decisions. We have also absorbed the cost of labor agreements that include significant salary increases and improvements to working conditions for our teachers, psychologists, counselors, speech and language specialists, buildings and trades, and SEIU members. These investments will help us retain talented staff, and we know that a stable workforce is critical to improving student academic achievement and supporting students' social emotional well-being. The proposed budget before us tonight is another significant step in restructuring our finances and moving closer to a budget that truly centers the needs of OUSD's 34,000 students.

At the same time, we recognize that much work remains ahead. We must continue to rein in spending across the district and ensure that every dollar is aligned with student outcomes. This fall, we will open TK hubs, and we will need to carefully monitor this financial impact. We will also open non public school program and evaluate the financial implications of that work as well. In addition, we must improve student attendance, which will increase our LCFF revenue and strengthen our long term fiscal stability.

I am confident that this board is prepared to do this work. We will support the finance team through strong governance, thoughtful questions, careful analysis of data, and meaningful engagement with our students, families, employees, and community members. Tonight, we must pass a budget. State law requires that we adopt a balanced budget by June 30, and this is our final board meeting before that deadline. I urge all of my colleagues to vote yes on the budget before us tonight.

And while this budget is not the end of our work, it is an important step forward in ensuring both fiscal stability and our commitment to serving the students of Oakland. Do you have comments, doctor? At

this time, because I wanna make sure that we have plenty of time for discussion, I'm gonna ask staff to come forward to make their presentation.

Good evening board, thank you. So we're here for the twenty twenty six, twenty seven proposed adopted budget. And I'd actually, before we start, I'd like to, have a statement that I'd like to read to the board. For the benefit of the board and the public, I would like to clarify several statements that have been made regarding the proposed 2627 budget. The district's budget was prepared using the California standardized account code structure or SACS and is supported by detailed object level budget documentation.

The figures presented are based on those official records. First, the approximately 8,000,000 figure that has been referenced represents the projected change in the unrestricted general fund. It does not represent the overall financial position of the combined general fund. The same SACS form o one reflects a projected net decrease in the combined general fund at approximately 36,700,000, largely attributed attributable to the planned use of restricted funds as part of the board's adopted fiscal stabilization strategy. Second, statements that unrestricted expenditures were reduced by approximately 60,000,000 are not consistent with the SACS budget documents.

The budget reflects unrestricted expenditures decreasing from approximately 406,200,000 in the estimated actuals for 2526 to approximately 3,369,000,000 in the proposed budget for 2627, a difference of approximately 37,200,000. The multi year projection and the object level report do show a 30,000,000 budget adoption adjustment in object forty three ninety five. The SACS report does not allow the adjustment in the 2627 as in the next two years, so staff for the years has been adjusting in the 4 thousands. That adjustment is reconciled in the detailed object code report provided to the county and to the auditor for review and verification and not part of the major object code budget reports, but the total reconciled to the NYP. But it is labeled in the budget detail.

It is not hidden. The same object detail also includes approximately 15,940,000 object $43.94 which the district identifies as a reserve amount for the OEA settlement. That means the budget did not erase the OEA settlement. It reserved for it in the budget model. California law requires a hearing on the proposed budget, board adoption of the final budget, county office review, and a forty five day revision after the state budget when needed.

Just as the LCAP, as just explained, may be revised after a public hearing and before final adoption, so can the adopted budget. The detailed budget also includes an a budget adoption adjustment recorded in object 04/1995. This adjustment is identified within the object level budget detail and reconciles to the multi year projection. It is provided to the Alameda County Office of Education and the district's independent auditors as part of the district's budget documentation. In addition, approximately 15,900,000 is included in object forty three ninety four to reserve for the anticipated OEA settlement.

These items are identified in the supporting budget detail and are not omitted from the district's financial records. The budget adoption process established under California law contemplates continued review and refinement. The board conducts a public hearing, adopts a proposed budget, the county office reviews the adopted budget, and revisions may be made following adoption, including those resulting from the enacted state budget. Budget revisions during these during this process are a normal and expected component of school district financial administration. If anyone believes there is a specific accounting error or legal violation, staff welcomes identification of the particular line item, calculation, or accounting treatment at issue so it can be reviewed.

We are committed to correcting any error if one exists. At this time, however, staff believes the budget presented is supported by the district's records and applicable accounting requirements. A concern was raised about a staff perceived error in a line item staff has carefully reviewed the concern that has been raised and has not found evidence that the budget contains the alleged error. We remain committed to correcting any verified mistake should one be identified, but we cannot represent that an error exist when our review and supporting documentation demonstrate otherwise. Finally, I understand there are differing views regarding the budget assumptions and presentation.

I would simply note that the district's adopted budget is subject to multiple independent layers of oversight. Following adoption, the Alameda County Office of Education will conduct its statutory review and determine whether to approve, conditionally approve, or disapprove the budget. In addition, the district's financial records are subject to an annual independent external audit. We welcome those independent reviews and remain committed to providing complete supporting documentation to both oversight agencies. And the last thing I'd like to say is I thank our chief financial officer who has more than twenty years in school finance and Ruben himself with probably about forty years.

And thank you and we're gonna move on and Ruben's gonna take it from here.

Gonna go over the budget, prior to the board taking action, but I I I did wanna say something. The board has worked very, very hard in the last few months. I know because we've received your guidance. And I I think as some of you have said that where the budget conditions were back in January and December are significantly improved as we are about to enter 2627. Regardless of the comments that that sometimes are perhaps based on information that's not the credible information we use, you are entering into a budget that's a lot more sustainable, and we'll describe it right now.

And some of the information we just covered in the prior reports, so I will move expeditiously so that you can have opportunity to ask questions. The timelines include the public hearing that occurred on June 10, and finally, the adoption that will take place today. What is the current status? Well, in a nutshell, we are coming to you with a precautionary note. We need to continue the stabilizing processes for the budget.

Why? Because although the budget is in better condition, it is adaptable. It can be reviewed by the county, and we expect that the auditor will see it as a favorable document. There's still, some challenges that need to be addressed as were just discussed in the prior report. One of the areas that, we wanted to mention is there have been, a lot of discussions regarding discrepancies.

And and one of you, a little while ago, said we need to be clear so that the public understands the budgeting process. So we have two examples. There's a green line. Above the green line is the first example. And there was some criticism that our numbers didn't match.

And there's a reason for that. The numbers are designed to be different in different reports. Case in point, when you look at our financial reports, our total is $885,000,000. When you look at another report, it's 800 or 981. There's a discrepancy of close to $4,000,000.

Without looking at the detail, that $4,000,000 was addressed several times as a big error. But in reality, the budget reporting doesn't allow us to change it. As Ryan said, it comes from the financial system. The $3,900,000 are expressed in a separate area as transfers out. When you add the two numbers, it completely matches the number in the budget.

So I wanted to use that example because there's been a lot of confusion as to whether there are errors in the budget or not. It is very clear that our financial system transfers the data to the budget report and the budget report then allocates the numbers in different categories. And sometimes the totals don't seem to match, but when you add up the amounts, they're exactly the same. The second category is the bigger one. When we were talking about, well, how come the $30,000,000 that we have used as a reduction need doesn't appear everywhere.

If you look at the multi year projection, it appears in the subsequent years, but in the budget year there's a gray box. It just cannot appear. It's it's shaded. Well, as has been explained in the prior discussion, on the left side, you see all the categories that comprise that area. And right there, you see the $15,000,000 that were reserved for the OEA payment and the $30,000,000 that are the necessary next steps to stabilize the budget.

And as we discussed, that will be impacted by what happens in the state budget and what actions the district takes. So when you look at the right, you see the 30,000,000 and then you see 10. And that was another question. Well, it used to say thirty, thirty, 30. But as we explained in the last presentation, now with all the improvements in the state budget, with all the reductions that have been made with some of the cuts, we believe that on the third year out, you will no longer have to reduce by 30.

At this point, we're estimating 10. Now, a caveat. I'm a temp. I won't be here. But your team at the time might come back to you and say, it's not 10, it's 15.

If something happens with the state budget or with the district budget over the next year, and I'll give you one example. Right now, the federal government is shifting how they allocate funding. That might have an impact on how we project for the future. So that $10,000,000 might be more or less. It's a projection, but it's the best projection the team has based on current information.

So I wanted to clarify those two because that's there's been a lot of conversation about the district is making errors. And in reality, if there's an error, it has to come from the financial system, which by the way, is what is used every day for all the accounting. These reports are simple transfers of all that information to come to you with a comprehensive budget. As we look at the actual planning factors, the most important one right now is the COLA. We were conservative in the development of the budget with a 2.87 COLA.

And the question is why when the governor said 4.31? Well, any any of the many advisory groups that have been informing the development of the budget are saying stay with 2.87. But note, and that's why it's being noted, that there's a proposal for a four four point three one. The same goes for the ratchet up increase in special education. It's not an additional $900.

It's a differential between what the district has received at 900 plus dollars. And the discretionary grant, which will come and hopefully will be fully funded. So all these are based on the estimations that we've received from the state. The same goes for contributions. As you know, we have a mandate for a reserve for economic uncertainties and this board has been very prudent and increased it by 1%.

Right now, our report show that that is met for each one of the three years. As you look at the balance summaries, this was discussed before. Right now, we expect to have a net balance for the budget year and then a decrease in the next two years. Because you have a deficit, doesn't mean you don't have an approvable budget. It just means that it needs to be addressed.

So the next one is the revenue and expense. One of the challenges that we brought to the attention of the board from the first time we made the presentation is the fact that the board is aware that we have been spending more money than we get in in the past. And right now, it's projected, to continue. That reduction of the differential between expenditures and revenues is why some of these actions need to take place. So we wanted to make sure that the board continue to see that there are some challenges to the budget and does the need for those $30,000,000 and other measures to continue to address the structural deficit.

This 8,000,000 has been discussed at Notion. It's not a surplus. It's an increase it's an increase it's an increase of our revenue based solely on the fact that there are $30,000,000 in reductions.

The

unrestricted general fund for revenues and expenses continues to have a significant amount of expenditure in the areas that are traditional, salaries and benefits. So it is important as we mentioned in the last presentation that as we continue bringing you the correct information for our enrollment, our attendance, and our staffing, that that is managed because it continues to be the largest portion of the budget. The summary of the general fund continues to show that we started with a beginning fund balance of 124,000,000, and our expectation is an ending fund balance of about $79,500,000. Now on the restricted side, one of the things that we've mentioned to the board is that in in Oakland, the restricted and unrestricted side have a very different behavior. If the unrestricted side existed on its own, you would have an incredible amount of revenues over expenditures and very significant balances.

Where the need comes is that on the restricted side of the house, our expenses continue to outpace our revenue. So there has to be a balance that is normally done with the unrestricted part. That continues, and that's one of the reasons why I think, director Berry's question was very important. What do we do with the restricted and how do we continue that strategy? This shows that that differential is something that will continue to need to be addressed.

Our staffing again is an issue. So we Tara's team put together the certificate of classified and total of salaries. That amount with the reduction in force and the retirement incentive is is helping the budget, but it is important that at that area as well as benefits, which now pass classified salaries in in size continues to be managed and addressed. The proposed budget summary, as as presented, includes on the unrestricted side, an excess in in revenues. Again, the unrestricted side solid.

But on the restricted side, you can see there's a deficit of a $191,000,000. When you do the combined, you see there is that deficit of $36,000,000 that's addressed in the different manners that we've explained, the 30,000,000, etcetera. So what are the big changes between the third interim and the proposed budget? The most important element is that some of the directed the board directed initiatives are taking hold. There are savings.

There are some reductions in expenditures. And that hopefully will continue to create the stable budget that the district desires to have. When you look at all the funds, one of the issues that we brought to the attention of the board is that you have some funds that have very significant balances. So we wanted to show it in a manner that a full comparative could be done by anyone between the general fund and all the other funds. One of the reasons why it's important to make sure that the expenses track the funding source is that you have some categories like nutrition services where the fund balance has increased a lot and we find ourselves in difficulty transferring expenditures because of all the federal regulations.

But if you notice that balance is very significant. And as I mentioned before, we are concerned that when the balances are too high, there could be a a move to say, you know, some of it needs to be returned. So we will keep bringing charts like this so that the board can see that the balances are are continuing to be managed. There are two categories, and we wanted to make sure we pointed them out. One of them, by the way, has been pointed out by our labor partners, contracts and services.

But if you look at two categories, they've grown significantly. Let's start with employee benefits. At almost $275,000,000, it is a category that we're recommending that there's a lot of review. Now in some areas, it's absolutely mandatory. But in other areas, like for example, workers compensation, we can review the contracting that has been done and the processes to see if there can be some savings that can be achieved.

The other one is services and operating. This is one that the board has heard many times. This is where contracts come in and all that. That needs to be addressed. Once again, the growth of that bar is now well over $200,000,000.

So we wanted to point out two categories where the fiscal team can continue to focus to bring to the board some ideas for cost containment. Now when we look at the balances, one of the reasons why we continue bringing this to your attention is although the balances are declining, they still are above the 3%. Obviously, the mitigation measures that we are recommending will hopefully stabilize that upward. But if you continue to look at the at the bars, you see that the unrestricted part, it continues to be outshined by the restricted except in the final year where there's a balance. So that's why those strategies are recommended.

And then when you look at the available reserve ratios, as I mentioned to you, in each one of the projected years, we are above 3%. And that expectation is part of the 2% mandated and the 1% that the board has directed that we continue to have. So in any budgetary projection that is brought to your attention, one of the goals is to always make sure that we meet that 3% reserve. What are the next steps? Well, when the budget is adopted, it will be submitted to the county.

We made a recommendation to our superintendent to continue working with the auditor at the same time. So we're not gonna wait until audit time. We wanna make sure everything is reviewed because there are some strategies we can continue to implement. So you basically are having the numbers in in aside from the county in discussion with the auditor prior to the audit report. We're finalizing the year activities around August.

And as the board has indicated, come back to you with where the recommendations are taking hold and what the outcomes are. And finally, in September, the unaudited actuals. And with that, we will entertain any questions or comments. Sorry. Went a little fast, most of it was covered in the prior item.

Thank you.

I will take public comment first.

For registered speakers, we have Carol Delton, Asalo Avalon, Matt Glaser, Oliver Brennan, and A. B. Ringer.

Two minutes each, please.

Good evening, Board. So the numbers are being clarified now, and it's still 8,000,000 minus 30,000,000 is 22,000,000 deficit. And yes, the super colo of 4.3% and the SPED money at the May revise based on the number of students in OUSD and the number of SPED students will be between 12,000,014 estimate ballpark into the district. And that's why the finance team are budgeting 12,000,000 off the 30,000,000. But that's still a $10,000,000 deficit.

And that's just the restricted fund, which where we have to have a surplus in, and I don't think we have that. But let's look at the general fund, which Doctor. Frutis was just talking about, because it's very concerning when you look at a general fund. Next year, we're gonna spend down, based on the numbers, 7,000,000, the following year, 38,000,000, and the second out year, 29,000,000. That's a 105,000,000 total in this budget cycle that we're gonna reduce our funds by.

By the way, this year that we're closing out 2526 with all the 92,000,000 moving funds around, we have spent down a $100,000,000 this year. That's $205,000,000 between this year and the next three years that we're going into. 105,000,000 is an interesting number because that's about the cost of the OEA TA, which we have signed up for. It's like we have to pay our teachers. We have to give them a raise.

They have to live and and and and and stay in Oakland. But the funny thing is, the irony is that our def our our our fund spend down over the next three years is the cost of the TA. So, really, could we afford that TA? Had we enough work done to afford that TA? And, yes, our teachers do need to get paid.

But it's very concerning that our fund and you see the charts that are presented. Our general fund is dropping down to below $4,049,000,000 at the end of this three year budget cycle. We have done a lot of cutting this year. We've cut the district to the bone. What else are we gonna cut to get rid of this structural deficit where we spend about high $30,000,000 every year over the next three years?

What else have we left to cut? Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

What frustrates me is you you are dead set on not considering certain things, and you have no ability to justify except that that has been made clear to me. And I'm talking about closing of schools. And when your principals you have 60 principals ask you to consider it, and you have on your agenda your 260 consent items, infrastructure issues that are very overwhelming. And these issues are include safety issues with lead, asbestos, and other concerns, but you won't consider it. You have 20 schools with less than 300 students.

You have some schools with a 150 students, and you're saying we're gonna keep the schools open. Then last meeting, you spent $81,000 to have a survey of who's gonna be coming back to your school district. You're gonna survey a thousand potential and already existing parents. And you act as if you're gonna grow your enrollment and attendance when all of us understand that declining enrollment is an ongoing thing. The birth rate is dropping, People are moving out of California because of the cost of living.

People's lives are being interrupted with ice because we depend heavily on our community, our Spanish community in the past has been growing tremendously. That's gonna be cut. But you won't take into consideration things that have to be considered.

Thank you. Next speaker.

So state law requires passing the balanced budget by June 30 for the following year. That's so the county and the state can be sure that we've got enough money to make it through the next year. So the community can make sure that we have enough money to make it through the next year. But what's the point of doing this if you can just put in a $30,000,000 plug? Bud Ballot's budget doesn't mean anything.

Particularly if that 30,000,000 has nothing behind it. No itemization. No plan. Why wouldn't every organization just put an un itemized plug into every budget? Why not just put a $100,000,000 plug into this budget?

Because even if you're super COLA, your discretionary grant comes through, you know, might go down to $12,000,000 that we need. Right? What indications are there that we're gonna be able to find that money? Every trick and tactic has already been tried and they've come up with about $40,000,000 for next year. Where are we gonna find that $12,000,000 more?

You'd think that part of the presentation that we would've just heard might've talked about that, that wasn't even mentioned. Right? So that makes me very concerned that this is not something we can rely upon. It makes me concerned as a community member and a parent. It makes me very nervous.

Doesn't it make you nervous? It's not. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

I got my start in working on budget and finance issues when I was employed at San Leandro Unified District, and I represented the union on those issues. So I feel pretty confident because I know that School Services of California has certain projections that they advise all districts. I wish the state would pass its final budget in March or April. That's the biggest thing in my opinion that it could do to help districts so that you actually know what you have. Because one thing you don't also wanna do is you don't wanna further cut positions more than you need to only to hire them back or have to go to contracted staff that will cost you 25% more per person.

But that's what has often happened. So hand in hand with the budget goes the plan and sticking to the plan. And prior to this year, too much of the time, I heard great ideas that weren't followed through. I still don't know what's happening. We talked about the printer consolidation and the copier consolidation, and nobody's mentioned that.

And nobody's mentioned the elevator phones. Nobody's mentioned solar. But those are all things that have been on the plan that provide real concrete savings every year. In its own way, the agreement with OEA has already is already showing some benefits. There are close to $1,000,000 in savings among speech language pathologists who are signing on as employees for next year versus being contracted in previous years.

There is a very high return rate among special education teachers for the first time, which means there will be more credentialed people in the classroom. And you won't need your most expensive substitutes, the administrators, to come in for those many extra days of training that the first year teachers get. So one last point. OUSD already has a dozen empty properties. I'm not saying there will never be a time to close schools, but you need to think, first of all, of what use the buildings will be put to so that you don't end up with, the cost of blight and a vacant building that you've been dealing with on several of your properties this year.

Yeah. Are there any other public speakers?

Yes. We have Matt Glaser, if he's still here. If not

see him.

Yeah. All name has been called.

Okay. Thank you. Board comments? Director Barry, we'll go this round.

A comment. One, teachers do need raises. And I do poverty abolition work for a living, which is ironic. It shouldn't be necessary. And there's just it is unfortunate that school districts are doing the work that other people responsible for this mess should be doing, and that includes our state, and that includes the unreliable federal government that we have.

That said, the board also needs to do its job. So I want to pay teachers and therefore I'm committed to doing the things that we need to do. And for me that means all the things are on the table. I care less about what the specific thing is and I care most about how we do that work. And we need to be having that conversation instead of making excuses for why we can't touch certain things.

I also think that there are other things that, you know, we're experiencing the impact of raises in the budget, but there are other things in the TA that I also think we need to consider. And so part of the board doing its job is taking that other work seriously as well, which includes serious engagement with the full breadth of stakeholders who are impacted by those changes positive and otherwise. And so for me, this budget, I'm not as concerned. I mean I have serious concern for all the reasons named about the $30,000,000, but I have confidence given all of my conversations with staff and others and people across the state that that $30,000,000 is def is manageable. What I think is a more serious concern is how we manage the deficit, contain it so it doesn't grow year after year.

Because the plan, as it was clear today, after today's conversation, is really just getting us through next year. Like there needs to be additional intensive work beyond next year and it does have to start today. It just started yesterday. So you will see me likely pending the outcome of this conversation support the budget, but it's because I I'm wholly and deeply committed to the real work that all of us need to do.

Williams.

Thank you, director president Brohart. So, you know, one of the things I I'm just listening and hearing the questions and, you know, I really understand there is this complexity here. It's not really clear. It's not a step by step clarity of what we are doing. And I I can I can agree with many of you who are questioning what the strategies are when it's not as clear?

But, you know, one of the things I just go back to is we're at a time that we really were fighting for our survival. A couple years ago, we had certified negative, which was very close to a state takeover. We had the CBO actually encourage us to take a $100,000,000 loan out from the state. And we chose to move in a different direction. It could have been easy, it could have been over.

It could have been over. We could have just taken a $100,000,000 loan out and just paid it off, and we would be back under state receivership. That's the easy choice. But we took a different choice, and at the time, we had to cut not a 100,000,000, but 200,000,000. I think that's I think we've come a very long way in the last two years to cut close to $200,000,000.

We cut a $100,000,000 last year, and we're very close to balancing it out. You can you can go back and argue over the $30,000,000 or the $8,000,000, but it is not necessarily the the complete amount because we still have the state revenues that are coming in that haven't been actually as calculated in. And we did have a community member bring that up, but, you know, on a conservative level, we'd do what the numbers tell us to do, but in the end, it actually will will most likely balance itself out. Because what has happened year after year after year is that the unaudited actuals will show that there is additional money in the system. It may not be captured right now, and a lot of folks are looking for all the worst scenarios, but I think, you know, where we need to be actually is saying, can we make it through the end of the year?

Yes. Will we be able to make it at the beginning of next year? Yes. Will there be some adjustments again next year? Yes.

But, the fact is we have communities out in, East And West Oakland that wanna keep their schools. They really feel that it's valuable. They see that school choices hurt them because they don't get the same opportunities. So I think we also, as a board, keep our minds in understanding that decisions that we make are for those who may not be sitting right here today, who may not be the strongest advocates, who may be working two or three jobs. And so there are also folks that we haven't heard from.

And if you go into those neighborhoods, you'll find out why they want their school to be there. And it may be small, but it is mighty. And it may be a long time that they've had. But there there is a long history and tradition of us really supporting the working class folks who really need the schools in their neighborhood. Not everyone can get in their car and drive across the city.

So you're right. And you know, we we should actually be moving back to a neighborhood school district. I appreciate that. Thank you. Let's work that out.

Thank you, director Williams. Director Lotta?

So I I would just like to say that I think that the work that that our staff have done supported by the board is, by board decisions, but really the work that our staff has done to get us to this point is remarkable. And I just want to make sure that the people in this room and the people who are not in this room who've helped tighten up our fiscal practices, who made a lot of very difficult recommendations and restructurings to their own departments and to their schools are appreciated, even though they're probably not listening to this. Because we have made incredible progress. It is true that a year ago and even in December, I, like most many of my board colleagues, was very concerned about the direction we were taking and how we were getting closer and closer to a precipice where our school district felt very unstable. And as somebody who has three kids in this district impacts my kids and their friends the people who work and rely on this district.

And I think that there is it's understandable that to have made this big of a change in the way that we spend our money in this district, in this amount of months that we've done it, is messy. There have been decisions that have been implemented very quickly. It's very I accept the criticism that we could have engaged more people, that it should have been done slower, that it should have been done over a longer timeline. That's all very, very true. And we had a responsibility that to make sure that our district remained stable.

And so that has happened. We can and I, you know, I think a lot of people, even people in this room, didn't think we're gonna get to the point of adopting a budget that says we can meet our financial obligations this year, next year, and the year out. And I do think that it's true that the way that we sequenced the votes was very good because we all recommitted to this stabilization implementation plan that has specific actionable items. Yes, of course, we'll get more fleshed out as we go through. But it makes real the commitment to bridge the deficit in the out years.

And so I just wouldn't would say that the fact that it was messy, that things are happening very quickly, that numbers have changed from this year this meeting from the previous shouldn't detract from the work, the real work that has happened to stabilize our district. And I would just be remiss to say that, yes, that the engagement is ongoing. So I would just like to put a plug stakeholder engagement group that our district advisory committees are running, supported by our superintendent, but really held independently as one of the places that people can get involved in to really engage with what does the future of our district look like. And I just wanna lean into the work moving forward for our students and our whole community who relies on this district.

Thank you. Doctor. Hutchinson.

Thank you. Wow. You know, I just wanna point out again that I only received this final budget document on Sunday when it was posted publicly. That means as one of seven people with fiduciary responsibility, I don't have the ability to introduce a budget adjustment resolution or change anything that's being put in front of me. That's unacceptable, and it's never how things have worked in the past.

I've listened to a lot of people in here tonight try to talk about how things used to work. Wow. I also know none of them were here in the past times when things actually did work. So let's just remember a couple of things. We just left receivership after twenty two years, less than a year ago.

Next week is the one year anniversary. We must pass the balanced budget according to state law. And by definition, if we pass a budget that requires mid year cuts next year, that's not a balanced budget. I worked really hard to make sure staff was on the record over the last month at meetings. On June 3, the CFO said, we have a $30,000,000 deficit for next year, and you find that deficit on line b 10.

We also know $30,000,000, that number, it's not a plug, it's not a placeholder, it's a budget designation, a budget notation. That's why it's in parentheses, And it actually means minus $30,000,000 from expenditures. It's not something you can just take away because it's a plug. It means something. And so when you take that minus 30,000,000 in expenditures off the budget, you have to add $30,000,000 to total expenditures.

That's how the math works. And if you look at any multi year projection, you can see that this deficit, what they wanted to call a plug, exists only in the unrestricted because that's the numbers that we look at to determine these things. So if you look at the multi year projection in the packet from the public hearing on June 10, It said in unrestricted expenditures, a total of 401,000,000 was planned on being spent. It also had the minus 30,000,000 notation. Now on today's multi year projection, they took away the $30,000,000 notation.

And what should have happened is then you add 30,000,000 into the total expenditures to make it work. But instead, when you look at the math, they subtracted the 30,000,000. That's how we got a $60,000,000 less expenditures for unrestricted. Then when you run those numbers, it produces a surplus instead of the deficit. That's what happened in the numbers.

I can show anyone on the documents. You all can go look it up. It's the facts of the situation. And so what we just heard tonight is everyone talking in a way that it's clear to me they don't understand what number to even look at. So let's just be very clear on the budget.

The SACS report for the budget that will be adopted tonight. When you look at the unrestricted dollars, you go down the column and the net increase of almost $8,000,000, that's read as a surplus. Where on this budget in the SACS form is there any plug, notation, or anything about $30,000,000? That notation has disappeared, and because of it, it has produced a surplus on paper. Or the other option is somebody can stand up here and tell me how in two weeks, the number of projected expenditures has gone down by $60,000,000.

And the reason why those numbers were different last time on June 10 is those were actually the same numbers that were used in the third interim report, which were the same numbers sent to the county. That's why the county is saying there's a $30,000,000 deficit. Because that's what the numbers showed until tonight when this set of numbers was dropped on Sunday. So to hear everyone say you can have a deficit and a surplus at the same time, It's impossible. If you read their own documents for this budget, it says $8,000,000 unrestricted operating surplus.

Director Hutchinson, your time is up. We can take a second round.

We need We will take a second round. But please, everyone, just read through the documents.

Can we all hear

So we hear all of this word about how the 30 million's listed on the budget that's going to be adopted tonight someplace. I challenge anyone to find it in the document that was just handed out. And we are talking about $900,000,000 in our general fund alone.

Director Hutchinson, there are two other members who would like to speak. Director Batchelor.

Thank you. I'd like to appreciate my board colleagues for talking about not only the hard choices that we've made so far, but the staff work that has gone into the budget and the documents that we have today. I will be voting to support this budget knowing that we do have that hard work ahead. Based on, again, conservative financial projections, we will have to make reductions in future years, and I'm committed to implementing the fiscal stability stabilization plan and ensuring that revenue truly reflects the revenue that we are getting in a multiyear projection. For members of the public who want to support a healthy budget for all schools in California, I urge you to flood the governor's office with calls demanding that proposition 98 be fully funded.

We need every dollar constitutionally promised to California students as early as possible so we can make the most impact in our classrooms directly with our students. Our students, educators, and families cannot afford another round of budget maneuvering at the state level that short changes public education. Now is the time to make our voices heard and demand that California keeps its promise to our students and our schools. Thank you.

I've been in the district for almost forty years as a parent, as a teacher, now as a school board director. And this is the first time I have really felt that we are grappling with problems that have plagued our budget over the years. In particular, I think the district has often had, for many years, had a practice of just spending. We needed reading in k three. We put teachers in k we put programs.

We paid and then suddenly we needed, you know, to support middle school students. So we put money over there. But we never looked at where we had to move money from. We never and you know, people keep talking about trade offs, and those trade offs are real. And as a teacher, I felt that.

We could go from one thing to another. We would have books in our textbooks room that would it'd be a cultural history of of the district. Teachers would take them out and recycle them because you needed more bookshelves for the next books coming in. We had one program after another, And we were constantly chasing the band aid. We were constantly chasing where we thought the problem was.

And as we shifted, we didn't take away from the other pieces of it, so that we just added on. I think one thing that became apparent to me in in our past spending, recently on the board, is that because we had one time money, we had Esser money, we had COVID money, We spent down our reserves because we had them. It's like my savings account. You know, if I have $10,000 in the savings account and I spend it down, at some point, don't have it. And I think that's where we are now.

But what I really want to express to the people who've worked on this and to the board is that we said two things would not happen. We said we would not go into receivership. We would not take a loan. And I deeply respect the leadership of the the district, the superintendent and our finance team for honoring that. That meant I mean, that was that had not happened in the past.

And that means a lot to me as a board member that the direction that the board takes collectively is honored. I think the other thing, and we've heard this again, you know, I I think we hear you know, as a former teacher, I heard this too. We must pay our teachers. Well, you know what? In this society, your worth is valued by what you're paid.

And I I get this as the principals have talked about this as well in their bargaining, you know, that there are principals that are paid less than a teacher. And and, again, it's one thing. It's it it always felt like, you know, kind of heartfelt as a teacher, but we wanna pay you more. But we are doing it. And not only that, as a former special ed teacher, I spent one year, I did 50 initials.

I didn't get paid for that extra time. I didn't get paid for the time I took writing them. I didn't get paid for the time I took assessing the kids. The time I took away from the minutes that our students, like your students are deserved, they they're in their IEPs. I had to I had to do all that stuff as extra time.

So this is why special ed teachers leave. It's an untenable job. Speech and language pathologist will see fifty, sixty kids when I started. And and they deserve that compensation for that work, and we did that. We heard from our community.

We didn't wanna strike. Nobody wants to strike. I mean, I struck four times. I didn't wanna do it. That's my first year.

I struck for six weeks. But we honored that. And, yes, I think, like director Olada said, change is messy. And and there you know, we'll go through this thing, and I'm sure next year there will be other things we will change as our practice and our experience goes on. But we did this.

And the more importantly, our district leadership honored it. So after forty years in the district, I finally feel that I am being part of change. So thank you. Would we like a second round? Director Hutchinson.

Yes. Thank you. And I appreciate the story, but it has nothing to do with budget adoption right now.

It does have everything. And

so, unfortunately, after listening to everyone, I'm the only person that actually referenced the budget document. And this talk about the past I find offensive because, again, next week is the one year anniversary of leaving receivership because we manage the district's finances the right way and left receivership early. We should still be at receivership now if not for the work of doctor Kyla Johnson Tommel and Lisa Grant Dawson as the CBO. And tonight, just so we're clear on the consent report, just the items I pulled from the consent report, encumber over $400,000 worth of contracts. School closures aren't in this budget, and there's no designation for OEA in here because we never did the work to do trade offs to make money available for OEA's contract because this board last year refused to put money aside in this year's budget for it.

So again, when you read through here, we just heard a lot of and presentations from staff and the consultant talking about a $30,000,000 plug or placeholder that they referenced, that they said is still in the budget, and that that leads to the surplus. So superintendent Sadler, I would like somebody from staff to come show me in the SACS form for the 2627 budget, where do I find that $30,000,000 designation that we were just told exists. Because if it's not on here, it doesn't exist. So I don't see it. So can somebody please come and show me where that $30,000,000 designation that we know means the deficit exists in the budget that's going to be adopted.

Because I would argue if we can't find it on here, that that means there's something wrong with these numbers. So can somebody please show me? I might be mistaken. Where do I find it? The 30,000,000.

And I think mister Nguyen answered your your question in the

last Excuse me. I don't know why I don't know why you're answering me as a colleague on the board. Excuse me. That's not her job. That's not her job.

That's either the board president or actually, I'm asking a question in my time of the superintendent. And for every other question, we had staff come up or the superintendent's welcome to answer. Where do I find the $30,000,000 on the budget? That was a reference every place.

I was gonna check and see if, Ryan Nguyen is available, but it was discussed You asked the question earlier, and it was responded to.

No. Excuse me. No. I didn't. So we have budget adoption of a $900,000,000 budget, and I asked where to find the $30,000,000 plug, placeholder deficit that we've been told over and over exists.

There was a whole presentation. He went off other documents. We're on the SACS form that we're adopting? Where on the budget do I find that 30,000,000? This should be an easy answer for anyone because I don't see it on here, so maybe I'm mistaken.

And and the CFO, when he spoke about it, said you could find it on line b 10, but line b 10 doesn't exist on this form. So complete somebody please come tell me where I can find that designation.

If you're going to allow them to answer, doctor Frutos, do you wanna answer that? Thank you.

So staff, can we please bring up the general fund unrestricted restricted

like to answer without bringing anything out.

I don't know. Asked specifically He's going to answer.

You asked a

question. Excuse me. My question was, where do I find it on the form? So either you can point out on the form or you can give me a line. Don't want somebody to just come up here and talk.

I want somebody to point out where I and the community can find this designation.

Director Hutchinson, can we hear a response, please?

So actually, director Lares, correct. And director Hutchinson, the full explanation was given by Ryan. So I'm really surprised that that's not clear. It's it's on the 4 thousands.

What line do I find it on?

You you know how to read budgets. Look at the four

I know. And I I don't see it. Wait. So the 4 thousand's here in expenditure. Yeah.

Books and supplies. It says 81,800. Exactly. It doesn't say 30,000,000. Where's the 30,000,000 designation?

Answer the question, please. I'd like to hear the answer. Thank you.

Yeah. That's

when when Ryan presented the accounting, he showed that there was 15,000,000 for OEA, 30,000,000 for the budget stabilization

That's not on this document.

Well, nor

nor is every employee that we pay

in That's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking about the $30,000,000 that keeps getting referenced. And if it's a plug, it needs to be listed.

Or members Can he answer the question, please? Thank you.

It in was great detail by the explanation of what all the four thousands contain. As a matter of fact, he even went to the category of of saying, if it's one to 19, etcetera. The number is just the total there, and and the total doesn't include all the different numbers. In the presentation, I went over it again and cited the 15,000,000, the 30,000,000 ending in that amount.

So in the 4 thousands and unrestricted, is that what we're saying? This 81,000 represents the 30,000,000? And then we subtract that and do something with the other structural deficit and get a 8,000,000 surplus? Is this are you telling me 81,800 here in the 4,000 line b four, are you telling me that actually represents 30,000,000?

I'm telling you that it was explained to the resource level, And that number is

So I'm asking on the top level form.

He's

Superintendent Sadler, where can we find this designation? What he just said doesn't say $30,000,000. And this is what we're being asked to vote on. So I'm really concerned if I've been told this exists and I look on the form and I don't see it. And this captures this here is the top level.

This captures the details of the other pages. So if it's not here, it's not gonna be in further pages. That's how these documents work. That's why I said these numbers are fraudulent.

Thank you for your question, doctor director Hutchinson. It has been answered, and I'm gonna call the question.

Excuse me. It has not been wait. Point of clarification. As we're gonna adopt a $900,000,000 budget, I did y'all proved the point. None of you even spoke on it.

None of you referenced the documents. When ask of a specific number on the document, I get told it was already answered, and I have fiduciary responsibility of a billion dollars a year.

Mister Rakeshtar, can we call the question, please?

On the roll call to adopt the budget as presented, which is item k four dot dash four, item twenty six fourteen sixty six, and the resolution thereof. Student directors are absent. Director Lada?

Yes.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? No. Director Barry?

Absent.

K.

Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

And president Burghard?

Yes.

Motion's adopted. Thank you.

Next item on the agenda. There is no student report. There is no PSAC report. Do we have any comments from bargaining units?

Checking to see if have any comments by the collective bargaining units. If there is, please raise your hand. President Brewhart, I see no hand.

Thank you. Moving on to new business. We have item q one twenty six Dash0845, board policy five one three one point eight, students mobile communication, cell phones. Do we have a presentation for this or just

I'd like to make a motion to adopt item The q

motion made by director Lotta, seconded by director Bruford.

Yes. This is the presentation. We have mister Nels Thank

you.

I'm sorry, do we need I just wanna ask, do we need a presentation for this or are you

That is up to you guys. I do have just three new slides from the teaching and learning committee where you did request data. Okay. So I can update with those.

Alright. Thanks. Mhmm.

So again, this this policy has been presented as a teaching and learning committee. From that committee, there was question asked. How does it not load, around what feedback have we gathered and some of the other data pieces. For some reason, this slide's not loading, but this slide is about our administration feedback, and we did send out a survey to administrators about do they support this bell to bell cell phone ban, and to what extent do they believe would be more effective than a partial ban, which are the two options that the California Ed Code will allow starting July 1. From the 38 responses, over 26 responses said yes.

Sorry. 30 the one response to the 38 said that they fully support, as well as that it would be more effective, and most of those were from the high school and middle school level and some of the elementary. But there was a clear need for more district wide enforcement expectations to be sent out to sites, a need for a better family and communication plan and outreach, and the need for implementation guidance because that's what can be expected of our school sites. Laura Kleinman is a parent in that we've been communicating with as well as some other parent group members and they did a petition for how this is a full cell phone ban versus a partial ban. From that we received 336 respondents from all the districts in OUSD that were in fully support and from that breakdown was 240 parents, 47 teachers, and 11 other staff members.

One of the last questions that was asked, again this slide's not loading, is around cell phone discipline data that we have seen. There's been, at the bottom you can see there's the technology violation. Technology violation includes cell phone misuse. It also includes any, like, computer misuse, but we did try to take some of those out. That was more seen at the elementary level where it was either inappropriate content on laptops rather than just cell phone use.

But the middle school had the highest rate of cell phone misuse as well as a 181 in the high school. There's two categories that we use in Aries, so that's why both categories are here. That's the paging signaling device, and then technology violation is the other category we put in Aries. From that, again, is a timeline of implementation. Today at the school board meeting, we'll be just talking about or that's the teaching and learning committee meeting.

The law goes into effect July 1, so how we decide what how we move forward, it'll still go into effect. We'll work on our implementation of parent notifications of what that decision was and how what the expectations will be once school starts. In August, we'll be back again to be introducing that discipline matrix update that we talked about at the last board meeting. And this also will include some of the cell phone violations. And again, you can't be suspended for not or having your phone on.

But you can be suspended for other social media related things related to technology or anything from that. But that's some of the data requested. And again, attached to the rest of the presentation is what we presented at the teaching and learning committee.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Board comments? Director Hutchinson.

Yes. Thank you. This is another one of a continuing pattern of many of the items, and we'll see them later in the consent report, where in the fiscal impact for this board policy, it says estimated costs may vary depending on-site. At this time, costs are projected to be $500,000. Not one word any place of where that funding is coming from or how we're going to pay for it, which seems to be a violation of board bylaw nine three two two point one, which requires a fiscal impact analysis before something can be approved.

And if it doesn't have one, it requires a unanimous vote. So I would like a ruling from the parliamentarian or general counsel because this clearly says it costs $500,000 and there's no funding source connected at all, and I'm sure nobody can tell me where this is budgeted any place. So can we have a ruling, please? Because the memo is very clear for this item.

It's dependent upon the the answer to come from the superintendent. If the superintendent says that in terms of the funding source, the super can be if the superintendent can respond to that question, it will that will make it dependent upon my answer as to whether or not a physical impact analysis is needed.

First of all, wanna ask our legal counsel to give the discussion that we had regarding the implementation of this particular

Sure. Thank you, superintendent. So yes, as you mentioned, superintendent, this is a legal requirement effective July 1. Nelson explained the two options that are available. I do see that doctor Aguilera is on with regard to the the funding source and whether it's in the budget.

She would be the best person to lift up. I did meet with or discuss with her or ask her about this earlier and she did identify the funding source which is supplemental. Doctor Aguilator, are you there?

But it's not on the document And which means it's it's not official in a if in a document. Somebody just saying something doesn't qualify. Sure it is. Excuse me, the the board bylaw says that it's supposed to be actually done before it's even put on the agenda. And if the board president still agendizes it, then it requires a unanimous vote.

So the idea that somebody can just come and verbally introduce it when it's not contained in the official document is a clear violation of the board bylaw. And it also lets me know that it actually hasn't been budgeted for. Otherwise, it would be easy to list the resource code under which the funding exists.

So I think just to reiterate what our parliamentarian stated regarding items that are in the budget, that that

bylaws Then show me where it's in the budget. Then show me. But somebody saying We doesn't just had it where people were

each other three I'd like to hear from doctor Aguilera.

Yes. Director Hutchinson, to answer your question, it was missing from the item that was turned in, but we have confirmed that it is within the supplemental budget. And so we will be able to purchase the items for school sites, in terms of the Yonder pouches or the, I guess they're called cubby wooden cubby mechanisms to hold the cell phones. So we have confirmed that there is funding in the cell phone.

Fiduciary responsibility. How am I supposed to confirm that? And if there was a mistake and it wasn't submitted, then then there should have either been a special meeting scheduled on twenty four hours notice, or at least provide the document here.

I do wanna remind the board that this is a a law that was passed by the California legislature. We do have to have this in place by July 1, I believe, goes into effect.

Well, if things were managed,

we wouldn't be in this situation.

That doesn't mean we ignore the bylaw.

I'm I'm really tired of being interrupted. So I think, again, looking at our our responsibility to follow the California state law, that we do have a responsibility to vote on this.

Thank you. And we also have a responsibility to follow our own board bylaws or change them.

President ProHeart and, director Hutchinson, just to reiterate that the parliamentarian has already and I agree that bylaw applies when something is not in the budget and is being added afterwards. Thank you.

And and I just wanna point out that that's not what the board bylaw says. The board bylaw gives four things, four components that make up a fiscal impact analysis. And I read them at that last special meeting. But just because somebody here says it's in the budget, then this is a real simple Provide where in the budget it is, provide a resource code, give me a document, because at that at this point, after what we just saw today, how can I trust anyone's word that it exists in terms of what we saw? And that's not how this is supposed to work.

That's not how excuse me. Point of clarification.

That's not we have

thank you for determine that, thankfully. So general counsel Lindsay, I warned you about this ahead of time. This will not be problematic. Morzetti

and Esabella Bob

president, we we we cannot get the record it in the record if people are going to talk all across each other. Can't decide describe it. So and I was asked a question, so I wanna read the particular bylaw. And I'm not gonna debate the issue as to whether or not, somebody is believable or not believable. The board just adopted a budget for this year, for the next year, out of which this policy is going to be implemented as of July 1.

So board bylaw number ninety three two two point one says, the board approves the district's budget each June for the upcoming fiscal year. When the superintendent or board members introduce proposals that have physical impacts beyond what is in the district's latest approved budget, it is important that those physical impacts be known before the district staff or the board of education acts on those proposals. This bylaw is not applicable based on what the board has just done in terms of adopting their budget this year. And district staff has said, believable or not, that the money is in the budget.

Thank you.

Can we please have public comment?

Yes. We have two registered speakers. Leanna Zang Rosetti and Asal Olabala.

I'm I'm trying to understand. Are you buying pouches to put the phones in? Okay. Because they say that these requirements only apply to classroom time. It also says that there are situations where the students can use the phones, and that's doing emergencies, medical needs.

The phones can be used. So if the phone is in a pouch, how can that particular requirement be accommodated? It also doesn't identify if, I thought that children will not have the phones at all. Because if they do have them, if it's only saying in the the the the rules classroom, what happens when they're in assemblies? What happens with after school programs?

What happens when they're in the library? And then you come to the part where you have enforcement, and the enforcement is the teacher. I have seen many, many videos of teachers trying to deal with students with telephones, and it becomes confrontational a lot of times and even to the point where they start fighting teachers about their telephones. So if the enforcement person is the teacher and those phones are not in pouches, how does that teacher deal with you have to understand they're gonna be confrontations around that. How does a teacher deal with this confrontation?

And this says also that your policy must be updated every five years. That once you put this in place every five years, you have to bring it back for a review. But I'm concerned about this because the I left my phone home yesterday, and I I felt so lost without my phone. I was at school board I mean, city council, and I was you know I was crazy. But I think it had a lot to do when I didn't have my telephone.

So this is challenging, and I hope we don't take it lightly.

Just an additional comment related to this. We had already at several of our sites, we already have pouches, we already have lock boxes, we have evidence of procedures that are supported by teachers and students in place at several of our sites. So we had cell phone policies in place at different levels, but this is a statewide process that will provide these regulations or procedures at all of our sites. But we have a significant number of sites that already have the pouches and already have the systems that are supported by teachers and students and families.

Alright. Now can we call the question? Mister Richter, can we call the question?

On the roll call to adopt board policy fifty one thirty one point eight, students are absent. Director Lada? Yes. Director Williams?

Yes.

Director Hutchinson? Abstain. Director Barry?

Yes.

Director Thompson Sapsent, vice president Bachelor? Yes. And president Brujahr? Yes. The motion is adopted.

Next item on the agenda, I'd like to take these up together q two and q three and report out separately. Second.

I'm sorry. Which items are these?

Item q two and q three.

I would recommend that you double the amount of public comment time k. As a result of your assignment.

Is there board comment on this? Seeing no board comment, is there a public comment?

Yes. For public speak public comment, we have Osawa Labala.

I don't think she's here. Right? She's she's not here.

Okay. That includes public speakers.

K. Can we have roll call and the vote, please?

Yes. On the motion to adopt. Director Lauter? Not here. Okay.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Lauter?

Yes.

Director Hutchinson? Yes. Director Barry?

Yes.

Director Thompsons absent. Vice president Bachelor? Yes. President Burghardt?

Yes.

Motion's adopted.

Next item on the agenda is item q four twenty six dash one two two nine, amendment number four, measure y spending plan. Is there a motion to adopt?

So moved.

Second. And I believe you have a short presentation.

Yes. Good evening. Preston Thomas, chief systems and services officer, and Selena Nadalhaize is online if you have any questions about some of the projects. I will into the presentation. I think there's five or six slides that are, like, deeply relevant to to the item.

And so as soon as it's up, I'll walk through them. Just to give kind of some background and context, the spending plan is updated somewhat annually, but really addresses the the needs of the of the bond program. And here we go. This has been seen two times at the facilities committee and also reviewed by CBOC who actually approved and and endorsed the plan moving forward. So let me run through a few slides here.

One of the things I do want to stop on this slide for just one second. When we look at Measure B and we look at Measure J and we look at Measure Y, we spent $239,000,000 worth of measure j excuse me, measure y at this point. That means the Oakland voters have committed about 1.15 mill billion dollars towards our schools. And so we're making steady progress around this, and so this is the next iteration of how we're investing the Measure Y dollars. Okay.

A few things that we heard from the board here. A couple of key themes. One, that's driving kind of our recommendations here, that we need to honor our commitments to the Oakland voters and school communities. We have heard a lot of harm from the community when we do not follow-up on promises with named programs and named school sites. And so we stay true to that through this.

This is the first time we'll be prioritizing investments using the adopted 2026 facilities master plan that the board has recently adopted, and you'll see that prioritization play out here. And then invest in projects that both align with the master plan, but also offset the general fund costs. And you heard it in public comment tonight, like, how are we utilizing our bond funds to leverage reductions in general fund expenditures? And we are not making any knowing that the board has made some reductions in fund 14, we're not proposing any reductions or changes and actually foreshadowing some future investments in deferred maintenance. Tonight, we've been talking in each of the previous revisions, we've been talking about the measure wide bond contingency.

And that is a programmatic contingency that we've been using, and we've used it to address shortfalls in projects. Why? Because in the past bonds, we've learned that when we have these shortfalls and we have to cancel projects, it's really harmful to the school communities that had those projects named. And you've heard that repeatedly in public comment. This plan, and this is before I came in, was structured so that there was $73,500,000 to support these major projects that we're gonna launch later on.

Currently, right now, we have $62,800,000 in the contingency. We've spent 10,700,000 of those dollars in the contingency. And what we're recommending here is it's now the time that we have all of our major projects. They've gone through the guaranteed maximum price that the board should allocate that out in the spending plan to support the major projects. And I just wanna name, these major projects are about a $500,000,000 worth of investments in our schools.

In that t shaped framework that we talked about, this is where you address deep seated issues at school sites. And we'll we have slides that include all that. You all have seen those, and we can go into the specifics of them in a second. After you allocate this contingency, you'll still have $30,300,000 remaining in the contingency when we get to the fourth draw. And one of the things that we've gone through, and here's a little background on that, is a significant portion.

It meets all the best practices whether you're GFOA, you're looking at AIA guidance, or you're looking at CASBO. This is best practices around managing your bond program. We see that remaining 30,300,000 for the Garfield project that is still in design development and will go into DSA in the fall. We know that based on the master plan, we have about 5,000,000 square feet of lighting that is still using fluorescent bulbs that have now been outlawed, and the Willdan contract that you've approved is doing some deep invest investigations on how we might leverage other funding sources to be able to address that. We're the heat mitigation for HVAC that you've heard is the number one priority in the bond.

Some deferred maintenance, electrical needs across our school sites, TK expansion, and TK hubs in future cycles. Also, second priority is some of the comprehensive maintenance program and some other areas of access that are are still prioritized, but probably there's less need right now. So here's the most important, and I'm gonna walk through this, and then I'm gonna skip past all of the specific projects unless the board has specific questions around it. Claremont and Laurel, while we did allocate some of that contingency to those projects, they did end up coming under budget, so that goes back into your contingency. So you can see that there about $2,000,000 goes back into the contingency.

We are recommending an allocation for McClime's of 12,250,000 that would come out of the contingency. We're recommending Roosevelt has 6,000,000, a little over 6,000,000 that comes out of the contingency. CCPA, an additional 6,000,000. And then for Melrose Leadership Academy, 2.7. The board has already approved the guaranteed maximum price for these contracts, and that's different than past projects where you now know the guaranteed price that the district has for the construction on that project.

On the right side, there are other funding sources, and this is one of the things that I'm really proud that the the facilities team has been working with Oakland Children's Initiative and some other funding sources with Office of Public School Construction. On that side of the equation, we're booking those projects, and we're just adding them to the spending plan. And so the the projects are the Garfield that leverages some developer fees, fund 35, and the Oakland Children's Initiative funding. That total amount comes to $34,500,000. Fremont is using the the remaining money that was in Measure j that had been savings from phases one through four, rolling it into this final phase, plus a reimbursement that has come back to the district from the Office of Public School Construction that we're leveraging to do the the work finish the work at that site.

And then finally, Oakland Children's Initiative approved a new child development center at the at the the previous Washington CDC, which is one of the vacant properties that will be demolished, and then a new early childhood center will be developed at the Bushrod neighborhood. So those are the big shifts in the spending plan. Each of the projects is specifically laid out here in this format. And if you have questions about McClime specifically, because I know it's often been raised, Sele is on online to be able to answer questions. And then I wanna skip to so these are all the projects.

I'm just flying through these and so that you can kind of see where these investments are going. And then this is the last slide. Then there are some other investments that we are we would suggest that the district move funding into these areas. One, as you've heard, the number one priority has been heat mitigation. We're launching their several contracts tonight on the board consent agenda about cooling roofs.

We're still working around the window clings and some of the passive measures for this summer. We'll have learned a lot from those those applications, and then we're already starting to plan for the following summer's work. And so that's the $4,000,000 in heat mitigation. You've heard it mentioned around like site stabilization and work at our school sites. We will need ongoing funding to address that whether that be closing of campuses, removing portables.

We believe that that should come out of the contingency at this point. We've had tremendous success and partnership around, elementary turf fields that will save, not only money from the general fund and investment around the upkeep of some of those places, but being able to transform a few schools by adding, turf field in those locations. There's 12,000,000 with a solar energy and infrastructure that is already board approved. That was the special session that we had. This is just bringing it into the spending plan.

And then TK expansion, $2,000,000 that is fund 25 in developer fees, which is one of the uses of developer fees. All of those are either coming from concern contingency or earned interest that the district has based on the bond program itself because we do hold all the dollars right now for those projects. And so there is interest that accrues and we did receive that interest and we're applying it in the program here. So those those are the main quest those are the main slides and so I'll turn it over to the board if you have any specific questions about the spending plan.

Thank you. Are there any public comments on this?

Yes. We have Mario Capitelli and Osalo Labala.

Asado is here and I don't Okay. We'll take board comments. Director Barry?

Just a quick question on the slide related to the priorities. What's the best way for us to track the implementation plan for those priorities? I'm thinking selfishly particular about heat mitigation. And then if you could give like a very quick update on that, that would be great.

Thank you. No. Thank you for the question. Two things. One, we intend on quarterly reporting to the facilities committee meeting around some of these updates posting it on our websites.

So that's one. I think also you can see some of the implementation, and I know that the consent agenda is incredibly long tonight, but you will see contracts coming through for the work there. So that would be kind of one way that you as a board director can like review it as it's coming to the board, as it's coming for approval on contracts. And then, you know, finally, I think one of the things is definitely we will be reporting out at the beginning of the school year, not only to the board but also to school communities about some of the investments we've made, particularly around the heat mitigation at the school sites. So those would be the primary mechanisms we'd use to communicate back to the board and to the community.

And then status, but I do mean very quick because people belong to

Oh, and so one of the things is we we worked very because the board approved kind of the when we had the third draw of the bond, we moved forward with some of the third projects, which is particularly the heat mitigation. We went out to bid, and we had success particularly around the cool roofs and have been partnering with buildings and grounds. Some of the roofs are gonna be done in overtime from our roofers. We sat down and we talked to them about what their capacity was. And there was the whole project at at Fruitvale Elementary will be done in house.

Some of the work that was done at Lockwood was one of the roofs that they chose to use. There are four contracts tonight that are following the cool the cool roofs, and then we'll continue to go out to bid for those that can go ongoing through the the season. And that's kind of a double support. It supports the roofing infrastructure for longer term, but also the cooling. Unfortunately, one of the challenges we had was specifically around the window clings that you've heard.

We did put it out to public bid. We did not get any bidders on it because it was late in the season. So we're now working with individual companies and that do install those window clings. We're trying to get small contracts school by school to come through that would be able to be under the superintendent signing authority during the summer, but then more robustly going back out in the fall when the board comes back into session.

Director Williams, any director Lada director Hutchinson.

Thank you. You know, honestly, this really worries me. Here we are at the last board meeting of the year. In the last hour, nobody's here to engage. I think even last week's facilities committee meeting was a Brown Act violation.

And the board thinks they're gonna make a decision on how to reprioritize the roughly $500,000,000 that are left in the measure y bond. Not only is this not how we're supposed to do business, and not only did I not like some of the contracts, especially the contracts hiring for millions of dollars hiring firms to help manage our bond projects. You know, I remember when we did our first prioritization for measure y. And it wasn't like we had a pot of money left over to say, hey, in the future, we wanna save this for the future to see what other projects we wanna add in. So as we've gone along over these four years, five years, there's been more and more projects added in, but yet the three major projects that were supposed to be handled first, McClemmons, Roosevelt, and Garfield, still haven't been completed.

And it even makes me more worried to have a conversation about spending down the contingency when we haven't completed those projects yet. And so I don't think there's any imperative now to do things. I would be very strongly against the superintendent using authority that was created for the superintendent during the pandemic to settle new contracts over the summer, again especially with what we just had with budget adoption. So it's not good enough. And the other thing is I'm really concerned with as more news of how we are mismanaging our finances gets out there in the world and to the bond market that this is on a cost us tens of millions of dollars more on our next sales.

Because who's gonna wanna take the risk of doing business with OUSD with what we have going on now. So I'm just really disappointed that this is how we're spending our last hour of our last meeting of the year. And even with the conversations going on, this the the lack of seriousness that people take when we're talking about expensive dollars, our bond that originally was over $700,000,000. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd appreciate this conversation that we had at the facilities committee. And I believe CBOC also has been engaged with this. And I know many families who are here are also been engaged in a lot of this work, especially around the heat mitigation. I wanna remind folks that we had an audit recently of our measure y, and there were zero findings, which is very, very good for the work that we're doing.

And we are, yes, finally making headway with projects like MAC and CCPA, which will be having a groundbreaking tomorrow. And then we just recently got some good news about MLA, which we will share with that MLA community as soon as we're able to provide more information about that. So we are definitely moving forward. I agree though it is on a time frame that I wish it would be faster. I'm always about going faster with these projects because I understand the impact that school facilities have on our students.

But, again, there are many, many different factors both within our district and, quite honestly, outside of our district such as DSA, which is not the Democratic Socialists of America. It is the Department of State Architects that takes that again really has thorough review of all of the projects to make sure that they are seismically fit for our students, that they have the most modern kind of technology, and we also are implementing our climate resilience work within these projects such as the heat pump that's gonna be at CCPA as well as some of the other work that we're doing with the heat mitigation. So I'm excited that we are able to leverage these dollars, and we are also working in partnership with other entities and organizations to better support our families. So with that, I don't see any other folks raising their hands for this item. So I will just go ahead and call the question on this item.

Mister Rakestraw, can you take a roll call vote on this item, which is q four, the measure the amendment

Got it.

Number four of the measure y spending plan.

Yes. On the motion to adopt the spending the measure y spending plan, June the June met June 2026 measure y spending plan. Director Barry?

Yes.

Director Hutchinson? No. Director Williams? A yes. Director Lauter?

Yes.

Vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

And president Perhard?

Yes.

All other members are absent. A motion is adopted.

Thank you. Returning it back to you, president Brohard.

Can I make a motion to extend the meeting to 11:45PM?

Second. Mister Raikstrak, can we take a vote on this item?

Yes. I have board comment before the vote.

Oh, go ahead. Yeah. It's debatable. Yes.

Director Hutchinson.

Thank you. So as some of us predicted many hours ago and even a couple of days ago, there's no way that we're gonna get through all the items on this agenda. There never was going to be a way. And to keep pushing forward past 11PM at the last board meeting where, respectfully, if we don't include staff, we have two people sitting here in attendance, kind of shows how bad things have really gotten here. And and because the president has shown over and over all year long that she has the ability and the willingness to move items on the agenda to whatever order she wants, It's intentional at this point that our meetings are being run this way.

Our last regular meeting, we didn't get through everything either. So we should be able to get through our agenda by 11:00 easily if things are managed the right way. And it's the board president's responsibility to agendize a meeting in a way where we can. So again, the failures and the violations are just piling up, but it really does continue to to prove the point of how bad things have actually gotten that this is how my colleagues on the board think business should be done at the Oakland School Board.

Thank you.

With that mister Rickstar, can you take a vote on this item?

Yes. On the roll call to extend the meeting to 11:45PM, director Lauder?

Yes.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? No. Director Barry?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. Reverend Thompson's absent, vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

President Burghard?

Yes.

You said yes? Yes. Okay. Meet motions adopt. Meeting's extended.

Wonderful. Moving on to r, which is the adoption of the general consent report. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion.

Madam vice president? Yes. Before you before you take the motion, I'm wondering at the hour, director Hutchinson and director Williams have pulled a total of what appears to be 19 by Director Williams and 14 by Director Hutchinson. I'm wondering if any of those items they are willing to consider withdrawing their their pool. Director Hutchinson?

No. I was pretty explicit at the start of the meeting.

Okay. Thank you. Director Williams?

Yes. I am willing to, reconsider.

Then if that's the case me. If that's the case, the two items that I also pulled that director Williams pulled, I still want those included

in the hold list. That's understood. Director Hutchison Director

Williams, which of those items did you wanna put back into the consent?

I think we're going r 61 through r 72 minus minus r 62. So we're going r 61 through r 70 or '72.

Okay.

So you're returning all those to the consent? R '1 through '72. Yes, sir.

Minus Minus Minus

except 62. Correct.

I don't

think he have Okay. Any other items, mister Raul?

I think I have also r nine and ten. Okay. That's grounds. Wanted to talk about that one. We need to, I wanna keep that.

I wanna keep our 27, 28 about system controls, giving up transportation. I'll give up furniture makes me uncomfortable with spending a $500,000 on furniture. I just cannot stomach that.

Can you just let me know which ones those are?

Those are

the seven

years? Nine nine to '10 and '27 to '28, you are retaining. I'm retaining. Yes.

And I also

hear '62.

'62. And then '73 to '78?

Yes. I am gonna give up.

K. Those are going back into the consent.

I think he also said 61 to 70.

Yes. Okay.

Great. Okay.

Except for 62, which is still

Exactly.

And except for our 250.

I think you pulled February. Well, it will stay out because director Hutchinson has also pulled

it.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Excellent. Okay. Great. So

can Motion

to approve the consent agenda minus the stated items.

I second it. Wonderful.

Any board comments? Director Williams?

Yes. Here. +1, (234), 567-8910. Have 11 I transportation items. It just is very unfortunate that we are subcontracting 11 transportation items When we actually have a Zoom bus, which is what we're talking about at six two, to do this work, this would actually save us close to $4,000,000 if we actually started to put forth ideas to cost savings in our transportation system.

Just think it's a bit excessive too, and our budget is where we constantly have reoccurring contracts that we commit to two and three years, when actually we're at a budget time that we should actually be committing to one year at a time until we find stability and actually start to reevaluate how we're gonna do our structural deficit and how we're gonna do business. So I just I just I'm not gonna be able to vote for that, you know, for those that are sitting on this that are included. I just am very conflicted by that.

Let's move forward.

Thank you. Doctor Hutchinson.

Yes. Thank you. I think over the last couple of meetings when, we didn't get to the consent report at the last regular meeting, And then at the last special meeting, it was actually voted down. And I haven't voted for a general consent report since April 2025 because of all these problems that have been riddled through them. So I didn't pull every item today that I have an issue with or that I think is missing a fiscal impact analysis, but I will be pursuing it.

And so I just wanna make sure on the record that our two, four, five, eleven, fifteen, 22, 27, 31, 37, 47, 49, and 50, all our facility items that list two funds there as in the fiscal impact analysis. No dollar amount and nothing about which fund is paying in how much. And so there's no way anyone could know what's budgeted because it's not listed there. Our 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, seventy, seventy three, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, all have multiple sites listed as the funding source.

Director Hutchinson, just to clarify, those are the items that you've pulled were on consent. So those are do not include those items.

No. These are the items on the consent report that I'm speaking on, which is the tie item that we're on now.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Go ahead.

I wonder if there'll be one time I can speak where you don't interrupt me. You like yelling at me about things. So all of those don't have a proper fiscal impact analysis either. I'm going I'm going to be pursuing that. I don't think it qualifies.

And together, in this consent report, are hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending. And I know if I ask the superintendent about each one, staff cannot come up and designate where to find the funding on the budget that was just adopted tonight. We've gone through that the last two meetings. So this is how we overspent by $60,000,000 this year. This is the financial mismanagement, consent report after consent report, spending after spending that hasn't been budgeted for.

And then we show up at the end of the year, and people are wondering why we've overspent. And it is really telling that the people in charge of the finances in the district, I don't see them here anymore to answer any questions on these items as well. And if the key staff people involved or the superintendent who's supposed to oversee it can't answer the questions aren't even present to do it, I hope I've set off enough red flags for everyone at today's meeting. Thank you.

Doctor Brahard?

Yeah. I want to address this. I did go through every one of the consent items over the week while I was doing the proofing for the budget or for the agenda, sorry. And I did have those same questions about many of these contracts and the sources of them. And I just wanna say I did give my list and make many phone calls to TerraGuard who did explain them to me.

So again, some of the ones that have multiple sites are because they're also site budgets and that they are master contracts. So, again, these were I did take to heart, I know that you have said before that people look at the consent agenda items and don't look at them. I read every single one this time. So and, I appreciate, Tara Gard's answers to my questions. Thank you.

Director Barry, you had a clarifying question?

Just wanted to clarify which items return to the gen consent. Mister Eggstrom?

Okay. We do it by exceptions of what's what's what's still out?

Yes.

Okay. So as I understand it from director Williams, he, wishes to, retain to remove from the general consent agenda items r nine and ten, 27, 28, 62, and two fifty. Is that correct? Alright.

He says

For director Hutchinson, it is R1, R262, which is the same as director Williams. 8494113115122226239247248249, and two fifty. Is that correct, sir?

Alright. Yes. It is.

So those are the exceptions. Everything else is up for vote on the general consent report.

Thank you. Alright. With that, let's go ahead and take a vote on the general consent.

Oh, there

Public was a speakers just want to clarify.

Oh, that's

correct. I apologize. Public speakers on this agenda item Mr. Sechow.

Yes we have Jack Nelson, Sala Lovalla, and Mario Capitelli.

Come on up.

We'll do two minutes.

I'm pleased to report I had a wonderful conversation with Preston Thomas this evening, and there is a plan to have a meeting to develop a plan to address some of this. But given where we are, I feel as though I need to continue to question things. Tonight, have 263 items on our consent. If you looked at them for five minutes, it would take you twenty one hours to review them. Well, it would be great to be able to trust that these were all vetted and clear evidence.

It's to the contrary here at the district. If staff spent thirty minutes preparing all of them for this agenda, it would take them seventeen point six days of work just for consent tonight. R two fifty, r 15, and r 47 for 1.6, 240, and $450,000, that is $2,300,000 total, I believe all violate board policy thirty three twelve. All cover community and public engagement. These contracts also have done these contractors have also done the work of communications department including video production, what my department does.

One contract supports the cause of building up local businesses. It's hard to miss the irony that it does not support our employees. My team is locally governed by you. We are majority minority. The majority of us live in Oakland and our property owners paying the taxes and bonds to fund this work.

We have four students enrolled in our schools. Next year, we have the dedicated in our schools. And next year, we have dedicate we have dedicated and combined thirty years of work to OUSD. So why don't you invest here? With the seven eleven meetings coming and the superintendent search on the way, we know our department along with the board office and others will be asked to do more.

We expect more from us. To expect more from us and not invest more at this point is beyond unreasonable. Invest in the invest in those of us you call late at night to solve tomorrow's problems today, those of us who stick around and have stretched in the times of true emergency to make this place work. We may be human, we do have limits, but we are absolutely your best return on investment.

Thank you. With that, we'll go ahead and take a vote on this item.

On the roll of call for the general consent report minus the items identified. Director Lotta?

Yes.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson? No. Director Barry?

Yes.

Director Thompson is absent. Vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

And president Brohardt?

Yes.

Motions adopted minus the items named.

And with that, we will now take the items that are pulled. I would like to move r 47, the tentative agreement, with OEA

to forty seven?

Two r two forty seven.

Like to make a motion

to approve. I second that. Is there is there a public comment on this?

We're not gonna do the practice of the people who pulled it, say why they pulled it like we do every other meeting.

Like to say why you

So I'd like a point of clarification anyway. So there was a motion made. Is that motion then I assume we're using the language that's listed in the agenda, and that motion for this item means that this is a a pending approval, pending meeting the requirements of the superintendent's require county superintendent's requirements in the bay a b 1,200 letter, which is what the language is written on the agenda and on this item itself. And if I remember her a b 1,200 letter, it required us to make $30,000,000 in cuts tonight, which we haven't made. So this is listed as a pending approval.

I just wanna confirm that when we make a motion that we are using the language that's listed in the agenda. And that's a clarification for Oh. I think for general counsel.

Sure. I can clarify that. So the board has already taken the action that was requested in the the letter from the county. The letter from the county is included in the packet. So the board would be voting to approve the tentative agreement What

action from the county? Because the way I read this, the county in its AB 1,200 letter from last week, it stated clearly that the requirement was for the board to pass a plan to address the $30,000,000 deficit at the same meeting that the contract is approved. And we did not do that tonight. We did not do that tonight. So that's fine if this pending language is a part of the motion.

Yeah. It's very clear that this pending approval, it will never be fully approved because we, as a school board, can't meet the conditions that are set in it.

I just wanna reiterate again on the record that the board has met the requirement of presenting a plan in the same meeting as the OEA has been, the TA has been presented. Thank you.

Did you address why you pulled it? Yes? Okay. Okay. Is there any board comment?

I mean, public comment. I'm sorry.

Excuse me. I pulled it.

I I know. We I just So

I asked a a point of clarification. I didn't have a comment on on speaking on it.

Well, let us know why you pulled it.

Well, I'm really shocked that nobody else would pull it. The biggest thing one of the biggest things that everyone has claimed working on over the last five months, over the last year, is a new CBA for OEA. Haven't seen OEA here in months, and I've never seen a new CBA passed where the union themselves don't even show up. It's wild. And I would actually like, before we vote on this, I would like a ruling from the general counsel, because I know that several board members, in my opinion, have a conflict of interest.

Particularly director Williams, who is paid by CTA who receives dues from OEA. I think it is a an explicit conflict of interest to not recuse yourself from a vote that the organization that pays you benefits from. And so I would like a ruling from general counsel. It's very disappointing that nobody has recused themselves from any votes, Just like when director Bachelor didn't recuse her vote on impact bargaining, that directly benefited her husband as one of the 400 teachers who had eleven month contracts. And so I would just like a ruling for general counsel on the conflicts of interest, just so it's on the record.

And again, I would expect people to recuse themselves if it can be shown they directly benefit.

Thank you.

Can we get the ruling, please?

You turn to me.

Can I just address real quick? Sure. I do not take a paycheck from I do not take a paycheck from CTA. They do not pay me a salary at all.

So let's

just be clear. That's misinformation, that's distortion, That's misleading folks. And I'm appalled by this, with this false information. Thank you.

I'm gonna call take a ruling.

I'm appalled that people

bought OVAs not answering that before. Can we

have a

ruling from the general So counsel,

I just heard from director Williams that he is not a paid employee of CTA. I do also want to just reiterate that with regard to collective bargaining, there are some specific rules, some different rules with conflict of interest which we have discussed in private and in confidentiality. It's not appropriate to discuss otherwise here. And so I would just turn it back to the board to take take their final vote on this item.

So your ruling is that it's not a conflict of interest or it doesn't rise, excuse me, it doesn't rise to the level that you need to give an opinion here on? Is that is that what is I wanna be very explicit because this is a $100,000,000 contract that we can't afford. That should've never been made in the first place.

You you asked your question. She made her ruling director Point of clear Point of clarification.

Point of clarification. I wanna make sure I wanna make sure that the ruling is very clear in the public record. And that is the job of the general counsel, to rule on these things. All you have to do is look back at what happened with David Kakashiba and his conflict of interest, and how that was handled way back in the day.

The

general So I just wanna be I just wanna be clear that by Director the general

Hutchinson. Director Hutchinson,

what what I Please just let me finish. I just wanna be clear that the general counsel is not going to be ruling that there's a conflict of interest here along this

Director Hutchinson, I don't I don't need you to repeat me because that can get very tricky with your misquoting. What I will say is that director Excuse Woods

me, General Counsel. I didn't misquote anything.

I just wanted to general counsel.

Please don't accuse me of misquoting or saying something that's not true.

Please don't. Please don't. So if you would like me to speak, I can. If not, then you can carry on. So so director Williams just answered a very specific question, which is germane to what you are asking.

I'm gonna call the question right now. Thank you.

Alright. On the motion to adopt item r two forty seven, which is the OEA tentative agreement as stated as the motion is written in the agenda. Director Lada?

Yes.

Director Williams? Yes, sir. Director Hutchinson?

Abstain.

Director Barry?

Yes.

Director Thompson's absent. Direct of vice president Bachelor?

Yes.

And president Burghard? Yes. Motion's adopted.

Thank you.

So point of clarification, so we know with the pending approval. Who who makes the determination around that? Because what I heard stated that we met the requirements listed there. I know for a fact we didn't. I asked all those questions, and they didn't get answered.

And so is this general counsel that has the authority to make this determination? And if so, what's the process to challenge it? Because it's clear it's clear to me that these conditions not only haven't been met, can't be met.

I think we've already voted on the item. If you have subsequent questions, you can send them to me.

So that's why I'm asking for a point of clarification right now, because the last time I've sent questions, I never got an answer. So I think it's appropriate, and especially for the community, for a contract that's over a $100,000,000, to have a clear understanding when it says pending approval, what are the conditions

It's no

longer I giving I shared that before.

Okay. It pending approval. We're going move on. Because there's future language in it.

Items r nine

and Excuse me. Was that ruling, general counsel, that you're making that determination? Tactics. I can talk just as long as anyone else.

Can we take Until

I get an until I get an answer. So I want an answer on this ruling, a point of of clarification, who makes the determination We've him. She's and who's gonna do that going forward.

Talk to that. Again, we're moving on. This is just

delaying your But it doesn't mean that I'm gonna be quiet and let you do it. So go ahead and try that. Go ahead and try it. You recess every other time I'm speaking. This is all on you.

We say it out loud. Go ahead. Say it. Say it.

I'm going to say that we are going to move on with

the words of choice. Keep speaking. So, general counsel, if that's your determination, I don't think you have the authority to make that determination when it comes to this. Well, don't ask for your attorney. Continuing to I challenge that legal opinion after what we saw today, after my questions about the budget that haven't been answered, that people are gonna keep just approving money out the door.

And that's fine. And the meeting is adjourned.

What? We're just adjourning the meeting. I'm adjourned.

No. No.