Santa Barbara Unified’s budget for the 2024-25 school year was approved Tuesday night.
The majority of District funding in the 2024-25 Adopted Budget comes from property taxes. In past years, the District received on average a 4-5% increase in funds from local property taxes. In the coming year, the Santa Barbara County Tax Assessor has projected a decrease to 3.75%.
The budget includes a projected deficit due to increasing costs and a slower rise than usual in revenues from local and state funds.
SBTA and the District have reached a tentative agreement that has not been ratified and, therefore, is not included in the SB Unified 2024-25 Adopted Budget.
The full budget is available on the agenda.
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On page 12 of adopted 24-25 budget presentation it shows that all staff will get the 10% raise and 3% &2% in 2025-2026 including management. At Tuesday’s board meeting Maldonado talk about “tightening the belt ” on spending. I am wondering if she includes this 1,540,000.00 ( 1.5 million) going to management who already have generous salaries. If management wants a raise they need to make a case to the public and board rather than piggy back on the raises teachers and certified staff had to f work hard to get this for over a year and have lost over 100 teachers annually since other districts pay about 20K more and have lower cost of living. Many para educators salary are under the poverty line. If Maldonado is serious about tightening the belt this would be best demonstrated by not taking the raise. For her and the C00 it comes to over 30K a year each more than a para educator makes in a year. I find this self serving and opportunistic . Hope our board finds the will and courage to stop this overindulgent practice for those at the top while those at the bottom struggle .
Maldonado has bloated the administrative staff as well. Layoff every third employee at the top. Management does not need another raise with lifelong pensions paid by us. District administrators anre overpaid now. We’re a District with declining enrollment that needs more instructors to ensure proficiency, not an excessive number of over paid administrators.
There is way too many top level staff – Deputies, Vices, Assistants, Department Managers, etc. They primarily produce more administrvia and earn life-long benefits while draining funds away from the real workers, the teachers. It’s too bad that there isn’t a way for the public to clean house…
First step in cleaning house is at the School Board level. They, unlike the District high-level admin’s, are elected and therefore subject to being voted out next time around. Personally, I haven’t seen a single one of them who stood up for the students and teachers in the negotiating process. Not one. I wish we could oust Hilda and like you say every other high level admin., thereby liberating a MASSIVE (think about how much money they’ll be getting in pensions forever, for examp,e) amount of r Eve ie that could be redirected towards hiring and paying good teachers, refunding things like music, science, and art specialists that have gotten cut back so hard. One can dream…
“In the coming year, the Santa Barbara County Tax Assessor has projected a decrease to 3.75%.”
Sigh, grammar in the school district press release, embarrassing… They mean a decrease *to the increase*. Property taxes will still increase, just to the tune of 3.75% instead of the usual 4-5.