Official breaks silence after union pressured Oakland to pay huge teacher salaries

An Oakland school board member broke his silence after a teachers’ union pressured the broke California city to pay huge teacher salaries, saying there’s “no way we can pay for it.”

Last week, Oakland Unified School District and its teachers reached a tentative contract agreement to avoid a strike, but now OUSD board director Mike Hutchinson said the massive offer should’ve never been made.

The district is already facing a $100 million deficit and Hutchinson said the current pay hike to give teachers an increase of between 11% and 13% from now until June 2027 will put the school district in a deeper financial hole.

“This grows our deficit to an amount that we’ve never seen before in OUSD,“ Hutchinson told KRON4 News. “This tentative agreement would add roughly $50 million to next year’s deficit.”

Last week, the board agreed to send out layoff notices to some 400 employees including teachers, but Hutchinson argues these job cuts won’t even fill the financial hole they are already in before the pay raises.

“I know there’s no way for us to be able to pay for it, so the offer should have never been passed,” Hutchinson said.

A recent report found the district lost $9.4 million in state funding in the 2024–25 fiscal year due to declining enrollment and warned it is teetering near insolvency, The Post reported.

The teachers’ union and the school board must still ratify the contract. 

The California Post reached out to the California Teachers Association and the Oakland Unified School District for comment. 

Districts across the state have been feeling pressure to cut positions and massively reduce their deficits. 

Last month, the Los Angeles Unified School District board voted to send out preliminary layoff notices to hundreds of employees as it faces a deficit of nearly $200 million — driven by huge salaries and plummeting enrollment.

A whopping 90% of LAUSD’s $18.8 billion budget is spent on workers, with incoming teachers earning around $70,000 per year and many earning well into six figures, The Post reported.

Meanwhile, student numbers across the region have depleted by 13,500 to 389,000 over the last academic year — the highest rate in the country.

Sacramento City Unified School District is also facing the squeeze, with its board recently voting to eliminate 400 jobs including teacher positions, as the district faces a $113 million deficit by the end of the school year.

Fresno Unified School District board recently voted to lay off some 400 employees to cut into its $77 million deficit in a district that’s lost 1,000 students every year since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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