Fresno Unified deepens projected budget cuts as enrollment declines persist
Fresno Unified School District plans to make the largest budget cut in recent history for the 2026-27 fiscal year, amounting to $39.8 million and a cut of about 450 positions.
The positions on the chopping block include 308.2 full-time equivalent school site positions, including teachers, school liaisons, and campus safety assistants, and 141.3 classified employee positions, including project managers, customer service representatives, and nutrition services assistants, according to the district’s budget presentation on Wednesday.
Patrick Jensen, the district’s chief financial officer, said the reduction is due to the district’s shrinking enrollment, which created fewer demand for teachers and staff. He also said there won’t be actual layoffs. Instead, employees who lose their positions will be reassigned to vacant roles. The alternative vacancy, however, might exist in different departments or at different compensation levels.
Jensen said the exact count of filled positions to be terminated is not known at this time, as the “bumping” process is still underway. “Bumping” means the employee with the greater seniority, or more years of service, whose jobs have been cut, is allowed to displace less-senior colleagues so they can remain employed.
The eliminated positions include vacant roles and employees who took early retirement in December, district officials said.
The exhaustion of one-time grants during the pandemic and years of shrinking enrollment has led to consecutive budget shortfalls for Fresno Unified. After its budget peaked at $2.3 billion in the 2023-24 school year, the district has imposed reductions of $26 million and $34.9 million in the last two years, respectively.
Classrooms suffer the hardest cut
This year, classroom educators will take the hardest hit. Fresno Unified plans to eliminate 133.5 FTE teacher positions at various school sites, 22.4 FTE paraeducators, and 16 principal and vice principal positions, the proposed budget shows.
Jensen attributed the classroom reduction to declining enrollment. This current academic year, the enrollment in the state’s third-largest school district stands at 66,824, according to data released by the district in May. With annual declines of about 1,000 students, Fresno Unified projects that enrollment will fall below 60,000 within five years.
“We’ve understood for a number of years that low attendance and low enrollment are trends that are here to stay in our district, and they’re resulting in significantly reduced revenue,” Jensen told the board on Wednesday. “I just wanted to call out that two years ago, we started making Central Office reductions in order to try to keep cuts as long as possible away from our school sites.”
Over the past two years, Fresno Unified has terminated 61.3 and 34.4 jobs at the central office, respectively. At the school site level, the district added 167.3 FTE positions for the 2024-25 school year, primarily consisting of 50 teacher positions and 41 campus safety assistants, then reduced the staff load by 24.5 FTE last school year, according to the district’s document.
Budget uncertainties for near future
While the scope of these cuts is extensive, the current plan is an improvement over the $50 million budget cut proposal the school district put forward in January. Jensen said the governor’s budget revision in May resulted in the district receiving approximately $40 million in additional state funding than expected. In fact, Fresno Unified may not need to make further cuts next year, under the best-case scenario, he said.
The district decides to pause the plan to make $24.5 worth of additional reductions for the 2027-28 budget year, Jensen said.
“But it doesn’t mean that we’re particularly out of the woods, especially when we have to consider that we’re going to labor negotiations, there’s going to be asks for additional salary, there’s going to be asks for additional benefits, and there’s going to be an ask to preserve jobs,” Jensen said. “Unfortunately, with the revenue stream that we have, we cannot fully fund all three of those.”
Fresno Unified projects a General Fund balance of $92.31 for the 2026-27 school year, equating to a 5.52% reserve level. That figure is set to drop to 4.73% within two years.
California requires school districts to maintain a minimum of 2% reserve level in the General Fund. A school district not facing student population decline, such as the neighboring Clovis Unified, has a General Fund reserve level of 15.44% for the current school year.
Manuel Bonilla, president of the Fresno Teachers Association, did not return to The Fresno Bee’s comment request.
Fresno Unified board plans to adopt the budget before the end of June.
