LAUSD approves March 15 layoff notices in a 4-3 vote

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education voted 4-3 Tuesday to authorize the issuance of preliminary March 15 layoff notices and begin a reduction in force affecting central office positions, as the district confronts an $877 million projected deficit for the 2026-2027 school year.

The action allows the district to issue notices to contract management employees and certificated administrators — estimated in the board report at around 2,600 people — and approves 657 net central office and centrally funded classified position closures. An additional 74 positions would see reductions in hours or pay basis.

A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson said Monday that the proposal does not include any classroom teaching positions.

Staff told board members the move is necessary to comply with Education Code deadlines and to implement the district’s fiscal stabilization plan, which aims to address what officials describe as a structural budget imbalance driven by declining enrollment and the expiration of one-time COVID relief funds.

“If the RIF is not authorized, our projected expenditures and corresponding deficits will go up next year and beyond,” LAUSD’s Chief Financial Officer Saman Bravo-Karimi told board members.

But union leaders disputed the district’s financial framing, arguing that recent state revenue data could alter the outlook.

​​In a Feb. 6 letter to the Board of Education, United Teachers Los Angeles, SEIU Local 99 and the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles urged board members not to move forward with reduction-in-force notices before updated state tax collections are incorporated into the budget.

The unions pointed to December and January revenues that have exceeded projections and called for a stand-alone meeting once a clearer picture of Proposition 98 funding — the state’s constitutional formula that guarantees minimum funding for K-12 schools — emerges.

The Tuesday vote also exposed divisions on the board.

Some board members who voted no said the district had not sufficiently demonstrated that broad layoff notices were the most responsible or strategic option and argued that the analysis did not fully account for the operational and human consequences of issuing RIF notices at that scale.

“Authorizing broad RIFs notices at this scale, particularly when the report itself knowledge that many notices may not result in final layoffs create widespread uncertainty across our system. That instability has operational human capital and moral consequences that are not fully accounted for in this analysis,” said board member Rocío Rivas, who voted against the measure along with her colleagues Karla Griego and Kelly Gonez.

Public speakers echoed those concerns, questioning the district’s transparency and warning that additional reductions would further strain school communities.

Nicolle Fefferman, co-founder of Parents Supporting Teachers — an online community of roughly 30,000 people — said families have been closely tracking the district’s budget discussions for the past two years but still lack clarity.

She also pointed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s updated state budget proposal, which reflects stronger-than-expected revenue collections for education, and argued that schools are already absorbing nearly $1 billion in reductions made at school sites. Fefferman questioned why board members and the public have struggled to obtain detailed financial information.

“These are cuts that are essentially layoffs,” she said. “Staff and families have reported their deep concerns about the impact of these cuts.”

During the meeting, district staff pushed back on concerns that the vote would result in “thousands” of layoffs. Staff said about 800 certificated positions were closed during budget development but are not expected to result in the loss of existing staff, as retirements and resignations would account for those reductions.

On the classified side, officials said the 657 figure already factors a certain amount of expected attrition and reflects the number of positions requiring initial notice.

Final layoff determinations would not occur until May or June, after hearings and further review of attrition and revenues. Employees who are not placed by June 30 would be added to a 39-month reemployment list, staff said.