Sacramento City Unified School District’s Board of Education voted Thursday night to finalize laying off 503 positions to address their ongoing financial crisis. These positions would be vacated May 15.
The Board’s First Vice President Taylor Kayatta said that it wasn’t an easy decision to make.
“I didn’t sleep much at all last night because I knew what this meeting was,” Kayatta said. “Every single one of those positions, not only is it a person, but it’s a job that is being performed for this district. They are doing real work.”
The crisis came to a turning point in December when California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Team, or CFCMAT, brought the board's attention to the $127 million budget shortfall.
Another round of layoffs is set to be approved following administrative hearings by the end of the month. Following these hearings and subsequent layoffs, the district projects savings of $23 million. Tara Jeane, the board president, said that it’s a decision the board was forced to make to address the ongoing crisis.
“I’m also grappling with the sobering numbers, the sobering reality of our cash flow,” Jeane said.
In her United Public Employees report to the school board, Secretary Treasurer Marla van Laningham delivered her report for the local labor union of school administrators. She raised concerns for the future of the district following these layoffs.
“The loss of these employees and leaders will have an immediate and lasting impact on students, staff and school communities,” van Laningham said. “The responsibilities they carry cannot simply be absorbed by site administrators or remaining staff members whose workloads are already stretched beyond capacity.”
The majority of the workers laid off are classified employees, essentially hourly workers like custodians, food service workers and maintenance workers.
Even with the money saved by layoffs, the board may need to decide on whether or not to enter a receivership or risk 5,000 employees not being paid come next school year.
‘Time is of the essence’ for the district to enter receivership
Board president Tara Jeane (right) and the district superintendent Cancy McArn (left) sit in chambers at the Sacramento City Unified School District’s education board meeting on May 7, 2026.Ruth Finch/CapRadio
State receivership of a school district can be initiated when that district reaches insolvency, essentially running out of cash to meet payroll obligations. According to CFCMAT CEO Michael Fine, with the current projections they have access to, the best-case scenario is that they run out of cash by February 2027. If this happens, 5,000 employees will go without pay. Those projections include the layoff notices that were finalized Thursday night.
Fine said to avoid this fate, they would need to begin taking steps to undergo the receivership process as soon as possible. The receivership process has to be initiated by the state legislature. According to Fine, if the district was to go down the receivership route, legislation would have to be approved by session end on August 30.
“We have to capture them, if you will, and their attention and their vote to assist you while they’re in session,” Fine said. “Time is of the essence. I can’t emphasize that enough.”
Board members expressed resistance to the idea that a receivership was inevitable. Jeane said that they’ve made changes that are not represented in the budget projections used by CFCMAT.
“The current cash flow projections are based on the idea that we would do nothing else at this time,” Jeane said. “We’re asking for more recommendations. We’re asking for a plan. We’re asking for a way forward.”
If SCUSD entered a state receivership, the board would be relegated to an advisory position, and an appointed state administrator would make the decisions the board would normally make in order to get the school district back on track.
Board member Jasjit Singh said that the cuts a state administrator would make in a receivership are something the board can do on its own.
“What I see here is what I hope I continue to see our board doing already instead of waiting for someone from the outside to come in for us,” Singh said. “What this person would be doing is what I think a unified board can accomplish anyways. Or at least, that’s the hope.”
The next SCUSD board meeting will be held on May 28.
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