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EDUCATION - Don’t know what the Los Angeles Unified School District is doing with our education dollars? You’re not alone—they’ve never told us. The players want your sympathy on feelings, but not your eyeballs on the money.
And yet the core issues are straightforward. Enrollment dropped by almost 100,000 students in seven years—from 474,000 in the 2019-20 school year, down to a projected 376,000 for the upcoming year. Meanwhile, staffing levels increased from roughly 60,000 to 62,000 over that same time period. Increasing staff while student enrollment is tanking—does this make sense to you?
Annual structural deficits—which occur when annual expenses exceed revenues—are the norm since the 2024-25 school year. Since that year through the upcoming year, deficits total $5.4 billion, a sum which will just about wipe out the “reserve” LAUSD built up while temporary Covid funds were freely flowing from the feds. Covid funds had to be spent by September, 2024.
Image created by Author
Yes, LAUSD was already spending more money than they were bringing in when labor strikes were averted this past April through massive wage increases. Both the district and those unions bet big that sugar daddy Gavin Newsom and the legislature would swoop in with more cash to make up the huge shortfall—but that didn’t happen.
And now the district is under LA County’s thumb, tasked with revising their budget with specific expense reduction actions, timelines, and metrics, or else risk losing control of financial decisions to county officials.
As the taxpayers who fund public education, we are owed clear receipts on where education funds are going. Why is no one giving you straight facts?
Because the recipients of Los Angeles Unified’s $20.6 billion budget want to keep that money and that information under their control. Neither the unions nor LAUSD have any incentive to come clean on their shenanigans. And mainstream media refuses to ask critical questions.
General Fund revenues increased from $7.6 billion in the 2019-20 school year, hit a high mark of $11.8 billion while Covid funds were flowing during 2022-23, and are under $10 billion for the upcoming school year. Meanwhile, expense increases vastly outpace the increased revenue.
LAUSD image, modified (added arrows) by Author. Source for image: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26194052-lausd-budget-town-hall-presentation-october-2025/#document/p11
The wage increases negotiated at the brink of a strike by the powerful LAUSD unions, United Teachers Los Angeles, SEIU Local 99, and Associated Administrators Los Angeles/Teamsters 2010 cause massive layoffs of just under 6,000 full time equivalent positions over the next three years to keep the district solvent.
Yet union presidents’ comments published by the LA Times are devoid of facts on the financial effects of their bargaining agreements on LAUSD’s fiscal status. UTLA and SEIU leaders instead deflected responsibility by stating the district is blaming employees for its financial deficiencies and is balancing “their budgets on the backs of students and teachers”. They pose as victims to demand your sympathy.
During the many months of bargaining negotiations, UTLA repeatedly pointed to LAUSD’s “$5 billion in reserves”, the Beginning Reserve Balance for the 2025-26 school year, a balance which includes Restricted, Committed, and Assigned reserve accounts. The Fact-Finding conclusions—which formed part of the bargaining process after reaching an impasse—abstained from making a judgment call on the affordability of UTLA’s proposals, but called using “one-time funds or reserve dollars to cover ongoing salary commitments” an unsustainable solution.
UTLA slammed the Fact-Finding report, stating the “report provides no analysis of LAUSD’s financial ability to address the needs identified in UTLA’s proposals”. However, LAUSD’s news release of the March 30, 2026 report indicated UTLA was offered an independent financial review of its fiscal obligations, which UTLA declined.
If UTLA truly believed LAUSD could afford their wage demands, why did they decline the fiscal review?
A little-known fact: LAUSD was under a Fiscal Stabilization Plan for the 2019-20 school year due to projected negative reserve balances. But in the Spring of 2020, the Covid pandemic hit and new temporary federal funds started flowing. Covid funds served as a bailout, and allowed for a hiring spree even though families were fleeing the district in droves.
This time around, both the unions and the district want to keep their staffing level intact. They want to increase taxes to maintain their power, but they can’t even attract and keep enough families on board to stay afloat. Families want and deserve better academic results than what LAUSD offers.
LAUSD and union officials are making joint trips to Sacramento, holding hands and demanding more of our hard-earned cash be deposited in their coffers. They attempt to manipulate you with feelings, using images of students’ and teachers’ faces, while skipping over the hard dollar facts and lack of accountability.
They want another bailout. Will you give it to them?
(Maria Luisa Palma is the founder and Executive Director of Oleada, Inc., a non-profit organization which promotes parent involvement in Los Angeles public schools, and a former federal and state financial industry regulator.)
