The office of Sonoma Valley Unified School District Superintendent Jeanette Rodríguez-Chien has released what is described as an “important update on the ongoing negotiations between SVUSD and our labor partners.”
As many of you are aware, the Sonoma Valley Unified School District has been engaged in negotiations with our labor organizations and we want to take this opportunity to share some pertinent information.
As a basis for understanding the broader context of negotiations, we have to share the District’s current budget situation. The Sonoma County Office of Education, which has fiscal oversight over the District, has been communicating with us for several years regarding our deficit spending and their concern regarding the declining fund balance. Specifically, the District has been deficit spending for six years, and has reduced our fund balance from $10.5 M (2018-19) to $1.5 M (2024-25). The District is required to present its financial condition via interim reports twice a year, which report on the current year and two subsequent years.
When the District presented its First Interim report in December 2023, it self-certified “qualified”, meaning it might not be able to meet its financial obligations in the subsequent two years, and the County Office concurred with this certification. The County Office informed the District that in order to certify “positive” at the Second Interim, budgetary cuts would need to be made. When the Board of Trustees approved the 2024-25 budget, the projected reserve balances were 2.08%, 0.75% and 0.93%, which is well below the 3% reserve requirement. In order to certify “positive” at the First Interim, the District Board approved a resolution to make budget reductions of $675,000 in 2024-25 and $941,000 in 2025-26. These budget cuts, along with other savings outlined in the budget, creates a minimum reserve requirement of 3%, yet typically a 17% reserve balance is expected for a community funded school district like ours. Accordingly, we will need to significantly increase our reserves to be on par with others. It is therefore imperative that we make significant budget reductions to keep the District fiscally sound, but also to stay operational. If we do not address these budgetary issues, the County Office and the state could take over the District’s finances and program decisions.
How did we get here? Various factors have contributed to our fiscal challenges. These factors are not unique to Sonoma Valley. Many districts across the state are also experiencing similar challenges. One factor is the District’s student enrollment which has seen an ongoing decline from 4,127 in 2015 to 3,091 in 2024. Many of our families have moved away and fewer families are moving into Sonoma. Another factor is the utilization of restricted funds, such as federal one-time funds and grants, to pay for salaries and salary increases over time.
The problem with this practice is that these funds are intended for use for specific purposes and are meant to be utilized in a short period of time. The problem that we face is that when this funding ended, the District back-filled these positions and salary increases with unrestricted money. The issue with this approach is that over time, the District has taken on positions that were intended to be short-term and now have to be budgeted over the long-term, taking away from a fixed revenue stream. In recent years, our Board has wanted to provide compensation to our staff that is commensurate with other districts in our county.
Since 2020-2021, all staff members (administration, classified and certificated) have received 24.5% in salary increases, in addition to the step and column increases that most employees receive. These salaries are now competitive as compared to other Sonoma County districts. In addition, SVUSD pays 90% of employee health premiums, with our staff receiving $33,000 in health benefits on average, compared to the average of $17,000, in Sonoma and Marin school districts. The District also contributes 19.1% of annual salary to each teacher’s retirement plan (i.e. $19 per $100 earned). The employer contribution rate has also doubled in the last decade.These large increases have been the major contributor to our deficit spending as salaries and benefits make up 87% of the District’s budget.
SVUSD prioritizes student learning.It is important that the District utilizes fiscal resources to provide the highest quality programs to our students. As public stewards of our fiscal resources, we have to make difficult decisions to maintain a balance between compensating our staff and maintaining quality learning opportunities for all our students. Declining enrollment is also impacting our educational programs since we cannot continue to offer programs like music, drama, and others when there are not enough students to fill a class. This has also led to the District undergoing a school consolidation process. We understand this is a difficult process for our school community, and these decisions are not being taken lightly. We have to consider our budget situation and ensure we still provide high quality programs for our students.
In addition to budget challenges, we have also encountered other concerns that impact negotiations with our labor partners. We learned in late fall of 2023 that our elementary schools and high school were not meeting the state required minimum minutes of instruction. A third party reviewer found that we were short 260 minutes of instruction at the elementary level and 7955 minutes at the high school. Since then, these minutes have been added back into the bell schedules and all schools are now meeting the state required minutes.
We want our community to know that the additional minutes being implemented this year is a result of ensuring we are in compliance with State standards. We are currently working collaboratively through negotiations with our classified employee partners (CSEA) and our certificated labor partners (VMTA). Our goal is to reach agreements in both of these contracts. We understand that there are many questions and concerns. We strive to be transparent and clear by communicating with all of our stakeholders. We appreciate your understanding and support throughout these challenging times.
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