05 Feb WCCUSD Approves Current Year Fiscal Solvency Plan, Pushes Back Others

(Screenshot captured by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

West Contra Costa Unified school board members approved the fiscal solvency plan for the current school year, but are holding off on approving plans for the next two school years.

At its Jan. 28 meeting, members voted 3-2 to approve the 2025-26 plan that includes using $23.5 million in reserves and $13 million from its retirement benefits account at its Wednesday meeting to balance its budget. The approved plan includes freezing vacancies worth $1.4 million.

What’s left to commit to is two school years’ worth of reductions that WCCUSD staff has proposed, which could include merging Betty Reid Soskin and Pinole middle schools, eliminating school community outreach workers, and reducing each union’s full-time workforce by 10%. The plans awaiting approval would total around $87 million in cuts.

Francisco Ortiz, president of the United Teachers of Richmond, has been no fan of cuts on their own, but added another criticism about the process.

“None of these cuts have been brought in a fashion where there is … community input or even board oversight to make an informed decision,” said Ortiz at the meeting. “Tonight, you don’t even need to entertain the fiscal solvency plan.”

Ortiz said that was because the attached agenda items for the fiscal solvency plan were not published within the 72 hours required for a meeting notice.

Board members ultimately deferred the 2026-27 and 2027-28 fiscal solvency plans to the Feb. 11 meeting at the request of board member Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy to have more time for input from unions, community members, and the schools proposed to be merged.

“I’ll be honest: We haven’t done the work with the community or with labor (unions), and we always do, right? So we have to do it,” said Gonzalez-Hoy.

Superintendent Cheryl Cotton held two community listening sessions in January to discuss the plans, and staff have met with UTR and unions for supervisors and administrators about certain aspects of the cuts — namely the 10% in unit reductions and the high-level fiscal solvency plan — but that has not included “specific conversations,” said Sylvia Greenwood, acting superintendent of human resources.

On Jan. 29, UTR said its “line in the sand” is no reduction in force for educators, instead making cuts to vacancies; no cuts to elementary school music programs; no decisions made without community input; and growing programs if schools are merged.

But board member Jamela Smith-Folds wanted to know — posing the question several times to some of her fellow members during the meeting — “What’s the alternative?”

“The board is asking the district to go back and make a plan, but this is their plan,” said Smith-Folds.

Cotton said that she didn’t think that numbers presented as part of the fiscal solvency plan were going to “drastically change,” and she was worried conversations would not get “to the place of closure” by the Feb. 11 meeting.

“I just want to make sure that we’re being realistic about the expectations,” added Cotton.

Similar to during the UTR and Teamsters strike, some district leadership faced criticism for how it was handling communications with union leaders. Ortiz said at the Jan. 28 meeting that Cotton was either completely missing or late to the union’s requested meetings about the budget. Union leaders have previously said that Cotton was missing from negotiations during the strike.

One associate superintendent has announced their intention to depart following increasing backlash from UTR leaders that culminated in votes of no confidence. In December, Kim Moses, the then-associate superintendent of business services, announced that she was retiring in June.

Gonzalez-Hoy acknowledged at the meeting that further budget talks with community members “might end up in the same place,” but said it was necessary to come together to not make decisions in “a silo.”

Board members pushed the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school year fiscal solvency plans to Feb. 11 and to gather additional community input in a 5-2 vote, with Smith-Folds and Reckler voting no.