collective bargaining agreements<\/a> with employee unions, which include substantial raises, will add an estimated $1.5 billion in annual costs to a district budget that stood last year at $18.8 billion.<\/p>\nThe school board\u2019s vote was 5 to 2, with officials keen to follow legally required steps and timelines, laid out in union contracts, to make the layoffs stick. <\/p>\n
The \u201cyes\u201d votes, which board members said they cast reluctantly, were President Scott Schmerelson, Nick Melvoin, Tanya Ortiz Franklin and Kelly Gonez.<\/p>\n
Board members Rocio Rivas and Karla Griego voted no.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re making it a reality that our schools are going to be very much more destabilized than they have been,\u201d Griego said. \u201cTo me, this still feels like it\u2019s too much too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a percentage basis, the June layoffs may fall most heavily on Local 500 of California School Employees Assn., whose members include school clerical workers and library aides. The union has 254 employees on the layoff list.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are the essential workers \u2014 the people who support students, teachers, school sites, technology operations, transportation, nutrition services, special education and daily campus operations \u2014 being treated as expendable?\u201d said Ruben Alarcon, an IT support representative who addressed the Board of Education standing in front of his CSEA colleagues. \u201cThese employees are not the cause of crisis. They are the reason our schools continue functioning despite the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSupport staff are stretched thin,\u201d added Alarcon, who is on the layoff list. \u201cEliminating even more positions will only worsen conditions for students and families.\u201d<\/p>\n
The upcoming layoffs also fall heavily on Local 99 of Service Employees International Union, which represents the largest number of non-teaching employees, typically including the district\u2019s lowest paid workers. <\/p>\n
Targeted positions include gardeners, bus supervisors and other transportation workers. More than 200 computer technical support workers from Local 99 also had been on the list but are expected to be restored based on recent contract settlements.<\/p>\n
The board\u2019s vote on Thursday applied to 657 workers, but a district spokesperson said the hope is that number will eventually fall to about 150 \u2014 again, based on agreements with unions and also on natural attrition and transfers of those affected to available open positions. <\/p>\n
![\"Students](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779414318_790_.jpeg\")
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Students walk through the school yard earlier this year at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School. The L.A. school district is reducing the staff that maintains these outdoor areas.<\/p>\n
(Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Not part of the board\u2019s Thursday action are employees who lack union job protections, including some who have worked for lengthy periods under temporary status. <\/p>\n
Among these workers, the district has issued \u201cnon-renewal notices\u201d to 291 with teaching credentials, including 181 elementary teachers, and, at the middle and high level, 15 English teachers and 45 social science teachers. <\/p>\n
In addition, 51 pupil services and attendance counselors on temporary contracts will be let go, according to the district. <\/p>\n
Among 458 additional non-teaching employees losing jobs will be 114 campus aides, 107 community representatives, 143 instructional aides and 336 school supervision aides.<\/p>\n
Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias vowed to reverse the remaining layoffs of his members, saying the district violated due-process rules.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding the cuts, the new union contracts included some expansions, such as additional psychiatric social workers and counselors and modest class size reductions.<\/p>\n
A grim outlook<\/p>\n
The three-year budget project was a list of unwanted outcomes. Melvoin described it with a six-letter profanity for manure.<\/p>\n
The projected cuts included near-total elimination of special discretionary aid to high-need schools and a separate program that provides academic and emotional support to Black students and others with similar needs. <\/p>\n
In addition to thousands of layoffs, school employees would face seven days of unpaid furloughs and have to begin contributing to their monthly health insurance premiums.<\/p>\n
The fiscal stability plan is part of a balancing act that requires the district to prove it can remain solvent over each of the next three years \u2014 despite uncertainties about the state budget and the economy that fuels it. <\/p>\n
If the state economy remains healthy, much but not all of this deficit would decline over time,<\/b> provided that the state continues current grants and that general state-funded school revenues continue to increase annually. However, state rules do not allow the district\u2019s budget planners to take such a positive future outlook into account.<\/p>\n
Local 99 leader Arias dismissed the necessity of the three-year austerity plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it takes into account potential new revenues,\u201d he said. \u201cWe still don\u2019t believe that there\u2019s such a financial crisis that merits such action.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final version of the fiscal stability plan is scheduled to go before the board in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,000 Los Angeles school workers are expected to lose their jobs after the Board of Education…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":813519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[187264,3387,1582,276,6279,407,13941,330402,8042,2961,42796,425,224,5337,1408,11645,15689,2450,17253,1628],"class_list":["post-813518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-big-cut","tag-board","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-district","tag-education","tag-employee","tag-employee-union","tag-job","tag-la","tag-layoff","tag-local","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-official","tag-school","tag-student","tag-thursday","tag-worker","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116615703741223418","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Students](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779414316_328_.jpeg\")
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