California school district plans to cut 151 jobs after wildfire

Bloomberg News

The Pasadena Unified School District in Southern California announced plans to eliminate 151 full-time employees, including 115 teachers, as it struggles to close a budget shortfall and deal with the fallout from the Eaton Fire.

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education will vote on whether to approve the cuts at a meeting on Thursday. District officials estimate that about 50% of staff and 10,000 of the district's 14,000 students were affected by the Eaton Fire, raising concerns that some teachers and staff who lost their homes could also be at risk of losing their jobs.

In addition to Pasadena, the district serves the unincorporated community of Altadena, which was devastated by the Eaton blaze.

Superintendent Elizabeth J. Blanco said declining enrollment was the main driver of the district's roughly $37 million budget shortfall. California funds public schools based on average daily attendance and PUSD's annual enrollment has declined an average of 2.2% since the 2014-2015 academic year. 

The enrollment declines are largely driven by an ongoing nationwide demographic shift fueled by longer average lifespans and decreased birthrates. Since April 2020, Los Angeles County's under-five population has fallen by 14.2 percent, compared to a 4.6% decline for the whole country. 

Additionally, the expiration of Covid relief funds is weighing on Pasadena Unified, as with many districts across the country.

"With declining enrollment, rising costs, and the expiration of one-time COVID relief funds, we are under immense financial strain," Blanco said in a statement. "Without swift and decisive action, the deficit will continue to grow, undermining our efforts to maintain the district's long-term financial stability."

The latest layoffs were driven by pre-fire enrollment declines, according to Michael Fine, the head of California's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. 

Therefore, more layoffs could be expected in the coming years because the fires that swept through Southern California are likely to deepen the ongoing decline in student enrollment at districts that were directly impacted by the blaze, according to state Sen. Sasha Perez, D-Alhambra, chair of the Senate Education Committee.

School officials can't be certain about when students impacted by the fires will be able to move back to their old neighborhoods, nor can they be certain about how many residents plan to move back. For example, enrollment in Paradise Unified School District, located in a Butte County town which was nearly entirely destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire, dropped from 3,401 before the fire to roughly 1,732 today.

United Teachers of Pasadena President Jonathan Gardner says it would have been more prudent for the district to wait for mass layoffs until they have a better idea of how the fires will impact average daily attendance. 

"It creates instability in our schools to have these massive layoffs," said Gardner. 

State legislators announced a budget proposal on Feb. 7 for next fiscal year that would provide average daily attendance funding to schools that saw a drop in enrollment due to the wildfire disaster. It is unclear how long the state will backfill that funding and whether the budget proposal will be approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom.