Pasadena School Board Set to Finalize District Budget on Wednesday

The Pasadena Board of Education will continue its budget discussions at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 30.

According to a staff report, the district plans to spend $266.5 million, of which about $213.4 million is tied to actions and services in the annual LCAP, and $53.07 million is not included.

The district must submit the budget to the Los Angeles County of Education (LACOE) by 5 p.m.

“This past year has been challenging for our whole community,” said Superintendent Brian McDonald in a budget summary preview. “We are happy to report we will be returning to a five day a week, in-person, educational program in the fall. We may still have a few health protocols to follow and might still be wearing masks inside the classrooms however, we are very hopeful that 2021-22 will look much more like what our students have grown accustomed to over our many years of service to the communities of Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre.”

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See the Pasadena Unified School District budget overview here

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According to the preview, the Unrestricted General Fund expenditures for 2021-22 are projected at $145 million.  Approximately 82% of those expenses are earmarked to cover the salaries and benefits of employees, including teachers and support service providers.

Salaries and benefits are projected based on established staffing ratios and board approved positions. In addition, budget allocations are provided to each school site on a per-student basis to cover operational costs.

 There are two major general fund contributions, or transfers to restricted programs, including $38 million budgeted for special education, $7.7 million in routine restricted maintenance, which is required by law. Lottery funds represent 2% of the General Fund budget or approximately $2.3 million. The district uses the funds to purchase textbooks aligned to the new State Standards and other instructional materials.

The State requires the use of various funds based on the type of revenues and expenditures, including the General Fund, which is expected

The General Fund is the primary operating fund and it is used to account for the ordinary operations of the District. The general fund includes all transactions except those accounted for in specialized funds. The funds the District maintains are listed to the right along with their corresponding expenditure budget

Unlike previous years, this season members will see the District is expected to end the fiscal year sitting on a mountain of cash — $42.1 million. But Board President Scott Phelps cautions that bounty will disappear fast in coming years between increasing operational costs and shrinking attendance.

The draft budget proposes to earmark just under half of the year’s ending balance — an even $20 million — for use as an offset to cover the future expected impacts of less ADA state money coming from a District student body likely to lose another 1,220 students and of climbing insurance and pension costs.

PUSD’s student enrollment this year was 15,014 but is projected to drop to 13,794 by 2023-24.

The district loses almost $70 every time a student is absent.

The budgeted expenditures that are not included in the LCAP will be used for Head Start transitional kindergarten programming, Perkins funding for Career Technical Education, actions funded exclusively by the Expanded Learning Opportunities grant, and indirect expenditure costs such as utility payments, the PUSD report shows.

“The pandemic really highlighted the educational disparities with respect to our underserved populations,” McDonald said. “This budget contains extra support staff for schools sites with the highest population of underserved students. This will allow the school sites to provide additional support, which we are confident will help us reduce the achievement gap at these particular sites. It also contains funds to accelerate learning to reduce any learning loss that may have happened this past year. We have weathered the storm and have come out even better.”