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Tony Thurmond, California’s outgoing superintendent of public instruction, has created nothing but confusion by interjecting himself into the ongoing fiscal crisis at the Sacramento City Unified School District.
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There is no way to make tens of millions of real and permanent cost reductions to the district budget while also extending a generous contract to teachers that sent SCUSD toward insolvency in the first place. Thurmond has perpetuated the illusion of the fiscally impossible. And as a lame duck who will leave office in a matter of months, Thurmond could make a mockery of himself and his office by meddling in the Sac City financial mess.
In a Monday letter to SCUSD, Thurmond upheld, for now, the veto of SCUSD’s two-year contract extension for the Sacramento Teachers Association by Dave Gordon, superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education.
Sac City appealed Gordon’s veto to Thurmond and also asked him to take essentially push Gordon aside. Thurmond has this power under a provision of the California education code if he determines that Gordon isn’t being “effective.”
Thurmond essentially owes his position as state superintendent to the teachers. The California Teachers Association was by far his largest contributor when Thurmond, then an assemblyman, first sought the office in 2018. He barely won. And when Gordon got in the way of a better financial deal for the teachers, the union quickly broached the idea of appealing to the recipient of its financial support.
So far, Thurmond has not disabused anyone of the notion that he could be influenced by his ties to CTA. He has basically agreed with Sac City and is setting up his office with a rationale to take charge if Gordon doesn’t shape up.
The contract extension approved by Sac City prevents the district from asking for any contract concessions from the teachers for four years, and leaves the door open for even more raises. The district approved this in exchange for the teachers’ blessing to tap a retirement trust fund to the tune of $68 million.
This is not a structural solution to a financial problem. This is how to keep bleeding the district dry and delay dealing with the district’s structural deficit until the cash runs out. It’s why Gordon said no.
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Yet Thurmond thinks this contract package for the teachers was a swell idea. It was “not only consistent with but also improved the school district’s ability to meet its financial obligations,” he wrote.
And then he took a shot at Gordon, saying his decision to rescind the contract extension was “not effective in resolving SCUSD’s financial problems.” Is the county education leader supposed to sit on his hands when a district proposes to deplete its funds? Apparently so.
Thurmond has set the stage to roll Gordon. His letter all but invites the SCUSD board, all bankrolled by the teachers, to approve some similar deal and force Gordon to reject it yet again.
“If I determine that SCOE is making decisions going forward that exacerbate fiscal problems or is failing to make appropriate decisions to correct them, I will exercise my authority … to assume SCOE’s authority and exert direct oversight over SCUSD’s financial decisions,” he wrote.
Maybe Thurmond is all bluster. He is certainly not the long-term savior for the Sac City teachers, but he could shift the balance of political power back to them — doing them a huge favor before leaving town.
Thurmond does not have his next gig lined up, his candidacy for governor having gone nowhere. For an ambitious politician, this is a dangerous and vulnerable place to be.
Look for Sac City to test Gordon yet again with another sweet package for the teachers and for Gordon, a respected education manager statewide, to do the right thing, triggering another appeal to Thurmond. Then, watch out.
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This story was originally published August 11, 2026 at 11:30 AM.