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This is a tough budget year for most government agencies in California, although not all of them.
It certainly is for both the city of Pleasanton and the Pleasanton school district. The city trimmed its budget for the next two years by about $10 million, which included two layoffs of currently filled positions as well as eliminating vacant jobs and some consolidations. That took place in the city manager’s office where Alex Jeffress was promoted to replace the retired Pamela Ott as assistant city manager. Her deputy city manager position was eliminated.
As painful as trimming library hours and other cuts were they were necessary for the city to bring its budget into balance with anticipated revenues.
The situation is even more challenging for the school district that just made Maurice Ghysels its superintendent (removing the interim tag) for the next two years. We will not know whether he stood so tall over the applicants that board members felt they had no choice. He knows the district and has guided it for a year so he’s had a thorough test drive. A question that will remain unanswered is whether the candidate pool was so lacking that there wasn’t a good choice.
Certainly, Pleasanton is a challenging district to lead. Enrollment has fallen steadily and that takes revenue down with it. The bailout money from the Biden Administration during the lockdown provided what should have been seen as one-time money, but that’s no more. The board approved $5 million in cuts for the current fiscal year that included more than a dozen layoffs, a reduction in working hours that amounted to pay cuts for senior leaders and other trims.
Declining enrollment of 1,650 students since 2018 has resulted in about $20 million in reduced funding. School funds from the state are distributed per student based upon the prior year’s average enrollment.
The district and city retain their reputations as a great place to raise families, but there aren’t enough students coming as neighborhoods roll over. Census estimates in 2024 show 23.3% people 18 and younger with 16.5% 65 and over—a growing segment.
Thanks to the passage of the bond issues, facilities are being updated, but it’s a general fund issue for Pleasanton schools.
The New York Times sometimes disregards the facts when they get in the way of a story theory. It ran a story, since picked up by the once fact-based Associated Press, that the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE, formerly led by Elon Musk) cuts to the federal weather service resulted in a lack of warning for the devastating floods that ravaged Kerrville and other Texas Hill Country communities and camps July 4th. Current estimates are more than 120 people have died, including 27 young children, and about 160 are missing.
The facts that the Times buried in the story, were that the office was fully staffed with five employees and had been putting out warnings for well over 24 hours. There was plenty of warning through typical channels from the weather service, but who could imagine that the weather systems would come together and dump so much rain that the Guadalupe River rose 24 feet in one hour, going from a relatively gentle flow to a wall of raging water destroying everything in its path.
The agenda driven “news” is one reason that the industry has so little credibility with so many people.
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