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As Oakland’s school district faces fiscal insolvency, its top budget official is warning that the school board’s unwillingness to cut services could make it impossible to balance a budget next year.
Last month, Oakland Unified School District’s board directed staff to prepare two plans that cut $100 million from the 2026–27 budget to stay afloat. That demand came with broad parameters: no school closures or mergers, maintaining school resources and student-facing roles and reducing the district’s administrative arm — the “central office.”
“We’re a school district. And a school district’s majority of its funds are in schools,” Chief Business Officer Lisa Grant-Dawson said. “There’s not $100 million in the central office.”…