At its meeting on Tuesday, September 9, the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) Board of Education [1] reviewed the Unaudited Actuals Financials Report, which summarizes the district’s final financial position for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The process includes a comprehensive financial review along with an analysis of revenues and expenditures during the year to determine ending fund balances.
[2]As part of his presentation to the Board, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Shariq Khan explained that the district’s General Fund is split into two parts—unrestricted funds that may be used for any educational purpose, and restricted funds that are earmarked for specific programs. During the 2024-2025 school year, AUSD received about $170 million in total general fund revenue from a variety of federal, state, and local sources. Of this amount, about $138 million were unrestricted and $32 million were restricted. Parcel tax revenue from Measures A and B1 [3], which include both restricted and unrestricted dollars, totaled $24 million.
[4]With the books balanced, Khan determined that AUSD ended the 2024-2025 fiscal year with $29.2 million in the ending fund balance. He also noted that expenditure growth for special education (SPED) programs has slowed compared to the 2023-2024 school year, mostly due to salaries remaining flat and the practice of contracting externally for paraprofessionals. Also, as part of a redistribution of unspent Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELOP) funds from other school districts, AUSD has an additional $1.7 million in restricted revenue to spend on after-school programming.
[5]Khan also provided a preview of the First Interim budget update, which will take place in December. He outlined assumptions in student enrollment as well as anticipated revenues and expenditures that inform the Multiyear Projections (MYP) process—a mathematical model that provides an initial outlook on how the district’s current budgeting plan may perform over the next three years. Since state funding is directly tied to student attendance, assuming that AUSD student enrollment declines in line with statewide and Alameda County metrics, the ending fund balance in 2027-2028 may fall to $6.3 million. However, between now and December, several changes may be made to these initial estimates to account for higher than projected enrollment this school year and fluctuations in SPED costs.
[6]Board members unanimously approved the Report. Superintendent Pasquale Scuderi explained that staff has been “very judicious about how we handle enrollment projections, even when we’re on the upside of them.” He added that it is prudent to make more conservative assumptions, warning that many school districts that have made their MYP look better than they are in response to temporary spikes in enrollment are now facing budget shortfalls.
Other notable items:
- Ruth Woldesemayat and Roan Byrne Sarno were sworn in as Student Board Members representing Alameda High School [7] and the Alameda Science and Technology Institute [8] (ASTI), respectively.
- The Board unanimously approved the adoption of the 2024-2025 Gann Limit, ensuring that AUSD expenditures stay within constitutional limits.
- The Board also unanimously authorized the hiring of three individuals on Provisional Internship Permits (PIP) to fill immediate staffing needs amid difficulties in hiring teachers who have met full subject matter competence requirements.
Ken Der is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post [9]. Contact him via [email protected] [10]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Ken-Der [11].