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The SRVUSD Board of Education is poised to vote on adopting a final budget for the coming fiscal year along with a number of related items, including its annual Special Education Local Plan Area budget, its Local Control and Accountability Plan and bargaining unit agreements.
The proposed budget for 2026 to 2027 projects decreases across local, state and federal funding sources with even deeper decreases proposed to expenditures as the district prepares to enter the second year of a budget reduction plan that was approved last year and took effect in the past academic year.
Overall, the district is bracing for a 1.2% reduction in revenue and a 5.4% reduction in spending as it continues tightening its belt in the coming fiscal year amid an ongoing structural deficit. While the budget reduction plan has led to an estimated $1.9 million surplus after its first year, deficit spending is expected to resume in the near future.
“SRVUSD’s structural deficit is well-documented,” the district cabinet wrote in the budget documents prepared for submission to the state, pending the board’s adoption Tuesday.
“Over the course of the past two years, the District has convened a Budget Advisory Committee, held several budget-focused Town Halls, and ultimately approved approximately $26 million in reductions that were implemented in 2025-26,” they continued. “The Budget Reduction plan enters year 2 in 2026-27, and the current MYP (multi-year projection) reflects this progress. The Budget Reduction plan ends after 2027-28, and we see the structural deficit resume again in the following year. The District will take the necessary steps to resolve the long-term structural deficit.”
Among those steps towards a balanced budget in the long-term is the planned sale of the district’s Danville headquarters at 699 Old Orchard Road, which is set to be sold as operations are moved to a new San Ramon location at Crow Canyon Place, with remaining space on the site set to bring in lease revenue from new and existing tenants.
But the district still has a long way to go toward long-term fiscal stability as it braces for continued spending cuts in the year ahead amid a weakening and uncertain funding landscape compounded by increased costs for services and materials, and projections of declining enrollment for the foreseeable future.
Federal revenue is expected to decline by 5.1% in the coming year. While LCFF revenue is expected to increase by a modest 2.4% compared with the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year, any gains are offset by a projected 8.5% reduction in other state revenue, and a 13.4% reduction in other local revenue.
Meanwhile, the district projects a 6.2% increase in spending for classified salaries and a 5.2% increase in benefit costs, with a 2.9% decrease in spending on classified salaries, a 54.3% reduction on books and supplies spending, a 29% reduction in services and other operating expenditures, and a 14.8% decrease in capital outlay spending compared with the current fiscal year.
That belt-tightening is already reflected at the end of the current fiscal year in tentative agreements with the district’s unionized employee and Tier 4 management groups, with a 0.53% one-time, off-salary payment at the pay rates effective Jan. 1 – set to be paid for with one-time student support and professional development funds – rather than COLA or merit raises funded by ongoing sources.
“The Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant and the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant are used to fund FTE that are assumed to continue throughout the MYP,” district staff wrote in the proposed budget. “As those funds are exhausted, the District will either identify an ongoing funding source or eliminate the positions.”
Costs for those one-time payments and other terms of the tentative agreements, including a $2,000 annual stipend for occupational and physical therapists participating in the Local Education Agency Medi-Cal Billing Option Program, amount to approximately $598,698.
That breaks down to $347,809 for agreements with SRVEA units, $147,507 for SEIU units, and $142,418 for Tier 4 management and confidential employees, which do not include the superintendent or assistant superintendents.
The SRVUSD board is set to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday (June 16). The agenda is available here.
In other business, the board is set to discuss Superintendent CJ Cammack’s performance evaluation, and the appointment of assistant principals for Windemere Ranch and Charlotte Wood middle schools in a closed session ahead of the public meeting.
