573 take early retirement from Fresno Unified as student enrollment declines
The Fresno Unified School Board approved early retirement for 573 employees, aiming to save the district over $56 million over the next five years.
Among more than 1,900 eligible employees, 321 certified employees (such as teachers and principals) and 252 classified employees (including school bus drivers and administrative staff) chose to participate in the early retirement program.
This is the first time since 2010 that Fresno Unified has offered an early retirement plan, said Patrick Jensen, the district’s chief financial officer.
According to Dannis Yu, executive vice president of the Public Agency Retirement Services, the 573 employees averaged 62.5 years old with more than 28 years of service.
“One also noticeable aspect was that the average salary of the participating employee was actually much higher than the average salary of the 1,900 employees,” Yu said. “So that actually bodes a little bit better for the overall savings for the program if we are getting those more highly paid employees to participate in the plan.”
Fresno Unified will save $13.76 million in the first year and savings exceeding $56 million over five years, according to the data presented to the governing board.
“Those are anticipated savings, obviously, those savings only occur if those employees who retire are not replaced,” Jensen said.
The early retirement program was offered while Fresno Unified is experiencing a decline in enrollment. This academic year, the district lost 1,100 students and it’s anticipating losing another 1,200 next year, according to Jensen.
“So now the easy work has been done, the hard work remains, and that is streamlining the district and ensuring that as we decline in the number of students, we can’t go back to increasing in the number of adults in the system,” Jensen said.
The district is looking to make $50 million worth of reductions over the next two years, Jensen told the governing board.
Fresno Unified has been enduring rounds of painful cuts after the one-time pandemic grants grew the 70,000-student district’s budget to $2.3 billion for the 2023-24 school year.
Last academic year, the district made $26 million in cuts and eliminated 61.3 full-time positions. This school year, the district further reduced its budget by $49 million through eliminating 34.3 full-time equivalent positions, mainly in the central office, and terminating the “Designated School Program” that provided an additional 30 minutes of daily instruction for students at 41 sites.
Most of the previously eliminated positions were vacant, with a small number of employees reassigned to other roles. Fresno Unified has not laid off any employees, district officials told The Fresno Bee in earlier interviews.
“We have a lot of employees who have a lot of expertise in their fields that will be departing — and replacing that knowledge gap is going to be hard and straight on our system,” Trustee Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas said at last week’s board meeting. “This is an opportunity for us to honor our employees who’ve been with us for a long time, and do so in a way that prevents budget cuts that will be painful for us down the road.”
The early retirement program participants will submit their resignation letters no later than June 30, 2026, and begin receiving their payments, which is 80% or their final pay, in August 2026, according to the district documents.
