Thursday, December 11, 2025

On Eve of County Deadline, Pasadena School Board to Vote on Financial Health and Launch School Consolidation Study

Four days before a critical deadline that will determine whether it retains local control or faces a state takeover, the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education will vote Thursday night on a financial report that declares the District fiscally healthy, while simultaneously taking its first formal step in over six years toward potentially consolidating and closing schools.

The two votes represent a high-stakes session for the District.

The Board will be asked to approve its First Interim Financial Report, certifying its own finances as “positive” despite a massive underlying operating deficit masked by one-time disaster funds.

Moments later, it will vote on a resolution establishing criteria for “optimal school size,” launching a study process that could lead to school closures in a District that has lost over 3,000 students in seven years.

This dual strategy—projecting financial confidence while acknowledging the need for painful structural change—is the District’s final effort to satisfy the Los Angeles County Office of Education. The County agency, which has been monitoring Pasadena Unified School District’s deteriorating finances for months, required the District to submit a comprehensive Fiscal Stabilization Plan by Dec. 15.

Thursday’s meeting is the final public act before that judgment day, when the Los Angeles County Office of Education has said it will review the report and decide whether the District’s plans are credible enough to stave off County intervention.

At the heart of the debate is a stark financial reality that was been obscured for nearly a year. Thanks to a one-time infusion of tens of millions of dollars in state and federal funds to recover from the devastating January Eaton Fire, the District’s official budget shows a healthy $170.3 million ending balance for the current school year.

But the District’s own presentation for Thursday’s meeting reveals the illusion. Without the fire funds, Pasadena Unified School District is running a $21.4 million operating deficit this year alone. The District is spending far more than it takes in, a structural imbalance that the one-time funds have hidden from public view.

“Without fire-related revenues and expenses in the General Fund, the District expects an operating deficit,” the report states bluntly. It projects that without the Fiscal Stabilization Plan approved by the Board on Nov. 20, the District’s reserves would be “negative by 2027-28.”

That plan, which identified approximately $30.5 million budget reductions, new revenue, and staffing changes, is the foundation of the “positive” certification the Board will vote on. Yet, because the First Interim Report only captures financial data through Oct. 31, it contains no evidence that any of the approved cuts have actually been implemented.

The District is, in essence, asking the County to trust that its plan, passed just three weeks ago, will work.

Adding to the pressure is an accelerating decline in enrollment. The budget is based on a projection of 13,228 students for the current year, a drop of 911 students from last year’s enrollment—a 6.4% decline in a single year. Since the 2018-19 school year, the District has lost 3,100 students, or nearly 19% of its student body. The Board has closed only one school in that time.

That record of campus closure avoidance is what makes the second major item on Thursday’s agenda, Resolution 2852, so significant.

The resolution, “Establishing Optimal School Size by Grade Level,” is the first formal attempt to address the District’s vast surplus of space.

It sets clear, data-driven targets for what constitutes a viable school, a direct response to criticism from the Los Angeles County Office of Education that the District was operating too many half-empty buildings.

The resolution establishes the following minimum enrollment thresholds for a school to be considered sustainable:

With many of the District’s elementary schools currently below the 300-student threshold, the resolution effectively creates a watchlist for closures. It directs the superintendent to begin monitoring schools that fall below the minimum for two consecutive years and to bring forward recommendations for “school reconfiguration or closure” no later than October.

While the resolution appears to signal a new willingness to make politically painful decisions, the timeline it sets is slow.

It calls for an initial draft of a “District Transformation Plan” by February, but final recommendations on which schools to close are not required for another 10 months. A central question is whether this deliberate pace will be seen by the Los Angeles County Office of Education as credible action, or further delay.

In an October meeting, County officials used stark language to convey their impatience, “imploring” the Board to act and warning that “the clock is ticking.” They repeatedly stressed the need for Pasadena Unified School District to begin “doing business differently.”

Thursday’s meeting will test whether the Board’s actions meet that standard. The agenda is laden with symbolism. The first action item is a resolution commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire, a somber reminder of the disaster whose financial windfall has paradoxically deepened the District’s long-term fiscal peril by masking the urgency of its structural problems.

After the Board votes, the First Interim Report will be sent to the Los Angeles County Office of Education. The County has said it will render its verdict by late December. It can accept the District’s “positive” certification, giving the Board more time to implement its plan. Or it can override the certification to “qualified” or “negative,” a move that would trigger the assignment of a fiscal expert in January and could begin the process of stripping the locally elected Board of its authority.