TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — On Tuesday night, the Tucson Unified School District’s governing board got presentations about the district’s budget for next school year.
On September 30, federal government funds the district got during the pandemic will run out and that means the district is having to consider which jobs to cut.
At their January 30 meeting, the district initially decided to reallocate money from the desegregation EDI program’s budget to other departments, but they quickly did away with that plan.
Currently, some of the jobs the district is considering cutting are custodians and monitors, and Tuesday night the governing board got information on the money the district has for them.
TUSD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo said the district doesn’t have money to keep roles like custodians, HR associates, and teachers assistants because they’re focusing on roles inside the classroom that offer students educational support.
On Tuesday night the district was supposed to have a public hearing on their desegregation program’s annual report but the governing board chose to postpone that until next meeting because they wanted to get the word out more.
However, this public hearing is something the district already should’ve had by January 30 and Trujillo said he takes responsibility for not having it.
“Going forward, we are going to make sure that as we post the annual report on November first for desegregation spending, that we will also be scheduling for the governing board’s first meeting of the new year, the annual report public hearing,” Trujillo said.
He said they did have the report posted by November 1 when they were supposed to.
He said the district also lost seven million dollars this school year because they lost 900 students. He said many are going to private and charter schools, but said losing that many students is not uncommon, especially in the past few years.
He said this is not where the district wants to be. He said the loss of money could have been put towards uniforms for band and sports, computers, new buses, and teacher salaries.
At the board meeting the governing board members also got information on the money the district has for summer school. Governing board member Sadie Shaw talked about the possibility that not all students who want to go to summer school are going to get to go. The district mentioned the possibility of a wait list.
UPDATE MARCH 7 6:40 P.M.
The district has clarified their stance on how many jobs will be cut after KGUN9 ran its story. At the time the story ran, the district did not express specific numbers on the amount of jobs cut.
The district gave KGUN9 the follow statement:
Currently, some of the ESSER funded non-classroom based jobs the district is considering cutting are custodians and HR Associates (there are no currently ESSER funded monitors and we have NO plans of cutting any monitor positions), and Tuesday night the governing board got information on the money the district has for them.
TUSD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo said that without the continuation of ESSER funding the district doesn’t have money to keep 3 custodians, 2 HR associates, and teachers assistants because they’re focusing on ESSER funded positions with roles inside the classroom that offer students educational support.
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Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
