By admin 
Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and state Senate Pro Tem Monique Limón can still save the Sacramento City Unified School District from itself. If they support a legislative fix that would clarify who is in charge of the budgets of financially shaky public schools before the end of the current session at the Capitol on Monday, sanity can be restored to a ridiculous situation in Sacramento and perhaps beyond.
Read more How much do you need to ‘live comfortably’ in California? See 2026 income range
Sac City Unified is going broke but instead of following the direction of the Sacramento County Office of Education, which has fiscal oversight authority over all county public school districts, the district is trying to do an end-run around logic.
District board members want Tony Thurmond, the outgoing state superintendent of public instruction, to push the county aside and enact an irresponsible budget move the county rejected.
Thurmond, who was first elected in 2018 with big financial contributions by the California Teachers Association, is running around Sacramento and giving a pretty good impression of someone serving the interests of the teachers union above all else.
As detailed by Chaewon Chung in The Bee, Thurmond’s Sacramento shenanigans have caught the attention of California County Superintendents, a statewide association representing all 58 county offices of education that oversee school district finances. Many are in financial straits similar to Sac City, because they granted generous contracts to employee unions they couldn’t afford. County superintendents are not seeking what is called a narrow “spot” bill confined to the Sac City crisis. They want statewide reform.
The flareup started when Sacramento’s county office of education rejected a horrible borrow-and-spend scheme at Sac City. Its board voted to extend the teachers’ contract for another three years. They also promised there would be no attempt to renegotiate the deal in order to save the district money. In return, SCTA agreed to support the district’s plan to raid a trust fund to pay for retiree healthcare to the tune of $68 million to help close a looming money gap of about $150 million. Mind you, all of Sac City’s board members were elected with the support of SCTA.
After the county rescinded that contract extension, the district appealed to Thurmond to exercise an obscure section of the California Education Code to take over the county office’s oversight functions. Thurmond so far has done nothing, but has threatened in a letter that the county has not been effective and that he stands ready to “exert direct oversight over SCUSD’s financial decisions.”
Read more In reaction to recent ICE shootings, Legislature mandates state investigations
Dave Gordon, the county superintendent, has been the grownup in the room in this mess. So has the independent state office that oversees financially wayward school districts, the Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team. Both opposed the teachers’ contract extension.
“Stripping a county superintendent’s statutory oversight authority is an extraordinary exercise of state power,” the superintendents wrote in an alert to legislators. “Unilateral state intervention creates the risk that the perspectives of local leaders and communities will be replaced by state politicians.”
There is no time for the Legislature to consider stand-alone legislation in education and appropriation committees in both houses. The logical legislative vehicle fast enough to move by Friday is a so-called budget “trailer” bill.
This bill has become Newsom’s favorite way of ramming policy reforms through the Legislature. He and lawmakers have already stripped Thurmond’s position of much of its power, shifting it in 2027 to the State Board of Education. Now they could finish the job by neutering Thurmond’s ability to second-guess all county superintendents in the state.
Last-minute legislating isn’t ideal. But Thurmond made the Sac City budget debacle worse. It’s not often the Legislature can be the cavalry, but they can save Sac City and other districts if they choose to act now.
Read more Bill seeks to bar sex offenders from public office. Some argue it’s too narrow