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The Sacramento City Unified School District board Thursday rejected all nine candidates on the state’s list for a Budget Review Committee and asked the state superintendent for more names, saying they didn’t believe the candidates could provide the independent review they sought.
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The unanimous vote came days after the district’s fiscal overseer, the Sacramento County Office of Education, rejected its revised budget, sending SCUSD into a state review process.
“Given that the county, in concert with FCMAT, has not been supportive of the budget, we want an independent set of eyes to look at it and offer recommendations that we’d be willing to look at as well,” Taylor Kayatta, a board member of the district, said.
“In that vein, the committee unfortunately believes that all nine names on the list aren’t able to provide us with that independent view.”
The district officials are grappling with a fiscal crisis marked by a $222 million structural deficit while clashing with the county education office and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, the state-funded financial group that provides fiscal oversight to school districts and evaluates their financial health.
The state-provided list included six candidates with ties to FCMAT — current chief analyst Tami Montero; intervention specialist Roslynne Manansala-Smith; coaches Jim Novak, Michael Bishop and Robert Shemwell; and Francie Heim, who spent 18 years as an instructor in the agency’s chief business officer mentor program.
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The other three were Peter Foggiato, associate superintendent and chief business officer at San Joaquin County Office of Education; Scott Price, who holds the same roles at Riverside County Office of Education; and Pamela Lauzon, a former assistant superintendent of business services at Jurupa Unified School District.
Under state law, the district must select three committee members within five working days of receiving the state’s list. The district received the list late Monday afternoon, Nov. 9, according to Kayatta, making Monday, Nov. 16, the deadline. If the board fails to select members by then, the state superintendent must select them himself.
Kayatta said the board would hold another special meeting before that deadline to select committee members if the state superintendent sends more candidates before Monday.
“If Superintendent Thurmond chooses to make the appointments himself, we trust that he heard our concerns tonight and we trust his judgment to select,” Kayatta said.
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This story was originally published November 12, 2026 at 8:28 PM.