Urban California School Districts send budget recommendation letter to governor
Mar 26, 2025
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- The seven largest school districts in California are joining forces and sending a letter to the governor with recommendations for the upcoming year’s budget.
“It was a realization that there was going to have to be some difficult decisions with California budget …e
specially given the Los Angeles fires and the cost that’s going to happen and then also the uncertainty with closing down the Department of Education, if that does happen federally, there are some things that are going to be important for us to continue to fund,” said Fabiola Bagula, San Diego Unified Interim Superintendent.
Including extended learning opportunities for students, the transitional kindergarten program and special education services – some of the programs Bagula tells FOX 5/KUSI are most important to San Diego Unified.
There are also recommendations surrounding teaching and learning.
“There’s a few things in Governor Newsom’s budget that we want to make sure that we uphold and that is money for professional learning and professional development of our teachers and then also continued literacy and math work,” Bagula said.
An adequate cost of living increase for employees is also included in the request.
“…Especially in San Diego. I think outside of all seven of those urban large school districts it’s very expensive to live in San Diego so we want to make sure that we keep up with the cost of living,” Bagula added.
Bagula says she stepped into her current role when there was a very large budget deficit – and wanted to ensure that it wouldn’t hit classrooms.
“The team came together, valued that, did not touch classrooms and made significant cuts,” Bagula said.
Bagula says they not only managed to get the budget deficit to zero but also hit the next few years by a significant amount.
“So I think we’ve proven to be good taxpayer stewards making sure that we’re making fiscally sound decisions, but we actually need this continue support to offer those extras,” Bagula said.
Bagula tells FOX 5/KUSI last time they sent a letter to the governor he honored most of their requests and they’re hoping to see the same when his revised budget is released in May. ...read more read less
