Budget FAQs - Budget Development for 2025-26

SFUSD is experiencing a significant budget deficit due to declining enrollment trends, reduced state funding, and rising expenditures. The district must implement $113 million in reductions for 2025-26 to balance its budget. 

Because the the California Department of Education (CDE) issued a negative certification of our budget report, the district is required to submit a plan showing how we will balance our budget. If we do not follow through on making these reductions, a state takeover is possible.

In May 2024, the California Department of Education (CDE) issued a negative certification of our budget report, which means that CDE has determined that SFUSD will be unable to meet its financial obligations over the next two years. With the negative certification, the two fiscal experts appointed by the CDE in 2022 to support the district in fiscal stabilization moved to fiscal advisor status. This means the fiscal advisors can directly engage in any district operation deemed counter to fiscal stability. 

If SFUSD fails to address its financial challenges adequately, our school district will fall into state receivership. This means that the state of California will take over the district’s governance and its financial, operational, and programmatic decisions for years to come. This would strip families and school site communities of their voice and their ability to shape their children’s educational experiences. It will further deplete resources directed to our schools, erode our collective decision-making power, and likely compound educational disparities for our most vulnerable students.

SFUSD is taking a number of steps to get closer to balancing the budget, including:  

• Reducing central office staff
  Eliminating hundreds of vacant positions
  Reducing rentals, leases, repairs, and non-capital expenditures
  Reducing costs for materials and supplies, contractors, and conferences 
  The district is also making an effort to reduce the number of possible layoffs, including offering an early retirement plan for eligible employees (SERP).

For the second year, SFUSD is using a School Staffing Model to determine how staff are allocated to schools. The Staffing Model serves as a starting point for school leaders as they develop their school plans. While most school allocations are determined through these guidelines, schools may receive additional site-specific grants from federal, state, or local sources based on eligibility and/or unique programming offered at the school. 

As we continue to explore budget balancing solutions, we want to work with our school communities to forge a path ahead. An important part of this process will also involve our School Site Councils (SSCs), which meet throughout the year to guide strategic planning at each school. 

School Site Councils are either currently or will be gathering community input to inform school planning and School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) development now through the end of March. Please contact your school site leaders for more details about how you can share your input with your School Site Councils.

SFUSD spends about 80% of our $1.3 billion budget on employees. 

In 2023, SFUSD and the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) reached a historic agreement that included a $9,000 salary increase for teachers in the 2023-2024 school year. Teachers also received an additional 5% raise for the 2024-2025 school year. Also in 2023, SFUSD reached an agreement with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 for a 6% salary increase for 2022-23 and a 10% salary increase for 2023-24. 

The final budget will be presented to the Board of Education for approval in June 2025. The final budget will be dependent on a number of factors, including the state’s revised budget in May and the number of eligible employees who participate in the early retirement plan.  

We will provide regular updates about the budget through our website and our family newsletters, including our weekly Family Announcements Bulletin (FAB) and our monthly Family Newsletter. 

Districts are funded by enrollment and get a certain amount of money per student. As our enrollment goes down, we receive less revenue. Our enrollment has declined by 4,000 students over the past seven years. This means the district receives approximately $80 million less in revenue than it would if it were still fully enrolled. Yet the district has not adjusted our expenditures or the number of schools we have to reflect this decline in enrollment. 

SFUSD has engaged in marketing and outreach efforts to recruit students, including traditional and digital marketing initiatives and engagement with the community through community-based organizations (CBOs), community workshops, and the annual enrollment fair. In addition to these outreach and marketing efforts, beginning with enrollment for the 2025-26 school year, SFUSD has made the enrollment process simpler for families where applicants only need to apply once and have the ability to be placed on several schools' waitlists.