HUSD Selects New Superintendent

In Which: HUSD barely balances their budget for FY 25 and 26, Trustees are still making the same asks, And HUSD gets a new Superintendent in record time

Wu-Fernandez Promoted to Superintendent

During a special Closed Session HUSD Board Meeting last night, the Board of Trustees met to appoint Chien Wu-Fernandez to the Superintendent of Hayward Unified School District. Multiple people gave public comment before the Board retreated into Closed Session, with many in full support of Ms. Wu-Fernandez.

Notably, Freddye Davis of the Hayward South County NAACP, spoke in favor of Chien Wu-Fernandez. “I’m here because I’m interested in what’s going on here in the school district,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of problems.” She expressed full support for Ms. Wu-Fernandez, “I think we need to work with her.”

Other members of the public pushed for a more open process with community input. Appointed positions, like the Superintendent, don’t have to go through the same open application process as other positions. So while it is common for an open application period, like with Hayward’s City Manager, it isn’t required. Chien Wu-Fernandez was the Interim Superintendent before former Superintendent Reimann was hired.

Toward the end of the Public Comment period, a group of over a dozen people spoke against the appointment of Wu-Fernandez. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to have the same people,” the speaker said, “to promote the people that have a great responsibility.” Unfortunately, the audio cut out for the majority of their comments. Many were holding signs saying “I am a Catholic and I am not weird” or urging the district to take responsibility for its actions. It was unclear how these topics were related.

The Board then adjourned to Closed Session for two and a half hours. Afterward, President Bufete revealed that the board had voted 4:1 to appoint Chien Wu-Fernandez as the new Superintendent of HUSD. Trustee Prada was the lone vote against appointing Ms. Wu-Fernandez. The terms of the appointment will be revealed in a future public Board Meeting.

HUSD Financial Report Still Doesn’t Satisfy

Last Wednesday, March 12th, the Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) Board of Trustees got a late-night financial update that included the recent $50,000,000 budget reduction. Delivered by Acting Superintendent Chien Wu-Fernandez, the update drew more concern from Trustees who were unsatisfied with the cuts. Even amid potential funding increases and a barely-balanced budget for FY 26, Trustees worried about the future and its impact on students and the district.

A First Pass In A New Era

Acting Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said, “This is our first pass at what our budget will look like as a result of our Fiscal Solvency Plan.” The update focused exclusively on the General Fund and resulted in a Qualified Self-Certification—meaning HUSD can maintain 3% reserves for this year and next year, but FY 27 goes below that minimum.

The Assistant Superintendent of Business Services, Amy Nichols, reported some potential good news. Despite the negative outlook for FY 27, the Governor’s State Budget included the potential of up to $9,700,000 in one-time money for HUSD. Although this could change between now and the May Revise, the funds could allow some Learning Recovery programs to continue a little bit longer.

And although the General Fund has increased by $4,000,000 since the last report, that comes at the expense of $9,000,000 in reduced spending. That money came from sweeping individual school site budgets, forcing austerity on school sites. “We are feeling these cuts now,” Ms. Nichols said.

The mandated cuts also reduced the deficit by $12,000,000 and balanced the FY 25 budget—exceeding the 3% reserve mandate by $12,000. But Ms. Nichols stressed that there is no wiggle room in the budget. If unexpected expenses arise, which they often do, something else will need to be cut to pay for it. And the ongoing cuts will also get HUSD through next year, but unless something is done to fix FY 27, they’ll be right back in Negative Certification again.

Ms. Nichols was, however, cautiously optimistic about the future of HUSD’s budget. “I am very hopeful,” she said, “that we will see new revenues and that will help tremendously.” She also said that there is no set-aside for union negotiations, which will be starting up again shortly with the new budget in mind. Ms. Nichols said it was important for the district to maximize funding and spend effectively and that it is “an excellent opportunity” for budget development.

Ms. Nichols, who seems to have worked wonders for the HUSD Business Services Department, has only been in the position for a little over a year. She has seemingly spent that time cleaning up systems and processes in the district, which discovered a whopping $20,000,000 in overspending last December which had gone completely unaccounted for.

How To Spend One-Time Money

Trustee Rawdon, despite the explanation from Assistant Superintendent Nichols about the one-time funding, was against using it for paying staff. “Spending one-time money on ongoing projects is out the window for me,” he said. He then asked Staff what it could be used for instead. They said that they can’t know until it’s allocated and all the restrictions are outlined. They also said that there may need to be a public needs assessment period to inform how the money should be spent.

Trustee Oquenda said she didn’t want the District to avoid spending one-time money on people, if that’s what’s needed. “That is not a regret,” she said, “using those monies and that is an example of appropriately used one-time funds… the service is still warranted.” She then asked Staff what it could be spent on if not people, but Staff repeated that the money hasn’t even been appropriated yet and everything would depend on the requirements attached to it.

Back On Contracts

Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo wasted no time going back to the subject of contracts. “I appreciate the added clarity I’ve received in terms of responsiveness since the recent leadership change,” he said. He commented, again, that the list the Board had received wasn’t a full list of contracts and pushed for Staff to provide a complete list of all contracts, seemingly confident that there was money left on the table that could have saved teacher positions.

Acting Superintendent Wu-Fernandez admitted that the list provided wasn’t a list of every contract, but was the complete list of contracts identified for the budgeting process. Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo seems intent on scrubbing every contract as much as possible, and the Acting Superintendent said that Staff could do that going forward. She even said that the full list of contracts will go to the next Budget Forum meeting, which includes labor representation.

However, Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo continued to see clarity on why the full list of all contracts wasn’t included. Ms. Wu-Fernandez said that the list was all contracts that had gone before the Board that could be used to generate significant savings. What wasn’t included were multi-year contracts—which couldn’t be cut on short notice—and those below $3,000—which is the threshold which forces Board approval. With a $54,000,000 budget deficit and a tight timeline, Staff presumably didn’t think it was worth the time to look at contracts that small.

But Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo was still not satisfied and insisted that a full list of contracts should be easy to generate. “Every other school district will tell you,” he said, “that if you use Escape [the financial software used by HUSD] there is a way to export a list of vendors.” However, a list of vendors is not necessarily a list of contracts. HUSD may have contracts with some vendors, but vendors are also just companies the District purchases from. Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo used the terms interchangeably, however, and pushed for a “deep look into contracts.”

Okay To Move Money Around Like That?

Trustee Prada expressed concern about specific Proposition 98 funding—which is funding Visual And Performing Arts programming—and how it is being used in light of the deficit. Staff said that the VAPA money covered aligned programming that had been cut, but things had been shuffled around so it was okay.

Trustee Rawdon was also concerned about Proposition 98 funding and was concerned that it was being used inappropriately. “That makes me really nervous,” he said. Assistant Superintendent Nichols said that there is language that allows for what the District is doing with the money and that a guide is published each year for what is possible. However, she admitted that “there are a lot of questions on this” and that Staff will talk deeply on the subject very soon.

At this point, the Administrative Assistant had to step in with a Point of Order because the conversation had gone too far off topic. By State law, the Board can’t discuss items that aren’t on the agenda, and the item wasn’t about Prop 98. Trustee Rawdon relented, but wasn’t happy about it. “I don’t know how to phrase it any differently and I’m tired,” he said.

No, Not Like That!

Trustee Prada expressed concern about cuts to attendance clerks, considering the significant impact attendance has on District funding. Staff clarified that the positions were not fully eliminated, but their hours were cut. Cutting Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) could be the result of removing one full-time person or putting two people to half-time, for example.

The push is for efficiency in the face of a shrinking budget. “What’s the best way to maximize the work time,” Ms. Nichols said. She said the Enrollment and Child Welfare and Attendance teams will help, but things still need to be worked out. It had only been two weeks since the cuts were approved.

Trustee Prada then tied the cuts in Facilities, Maintenance, Operations, and Transportation (FMOT) to safety issues. “I just want to stress the fact that I can’t think we’re listening to the surveys of safety from the community as a priority in these cuts,” she said. “We’re making our sites less safe with these decisions.” The Board made it a priority to avoid cuts to classrooms, which would have the most direct impact on students. This put the majority of the cuts on Teachers On Special Assignment (TOSAs), District Office staff and administrators, FMOT, and Management.

She then, again, hinted that there are specific people in management positions that she would like to see removed—without naming names. She was concerned with how people were moved around, “to different positions that they’re not qualified for,” she said.

According to most Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs), the District can only cut positions, not people—that would leave things open for retaliation—and then the Unions usually prioritize who stays and leaves based on seniority. If there was a problematic person in a leadership position, the only solution would be to cut that position—but then the whole position would be gone. Trustee Prada has been through multiple rounds of contract negotiations in her 4 years on the Board.

Where Is The Community?

When it came time to vote, Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo was annoyed that the Budget item was brought up so late in the agenda. “The idea that we only have one public comment when we are $54,000,000 short… this cannot happen for our third report in May,” he said, “when we are discussing the item at midnight—1 o’clock.” He felt so strongly that he drew a line in the sand. “I will vote no if this comes at 1 am next time,” he said, “because that’s not fair to the public.”

President Bufete chimed in with his experience on the Board, however. “Usually other comments on this item are pretty rare actually,” he said. But Trustee Bruckner-Carrillo insisted that teachers had been there for comment but left because they had classes in the morning. Acting Superintendent Wu-Fernandez said she would balance the agendas for the rest of the year to make sure it happens earlier. In this meeting, the Board spent 3 hours in Closed Session, so the Public portion didn’t even begin until 8pm.

Trustee Prada said that she was still unsatisfied with how the cuts had been decided. “I’ve expressed that I don’t feel comfortable with this report and the lack of plans.” The budget was only approved two weeks prior. She pushed the District to listen to all of the public commenters going forward on budget planning. “I really hope going forward that we do listen to everybody who has come forward to say that this is not how things should have gone down,” she said. “The decisions that we made were somewhat careless. We did not engage the community the correct way.”

She did not provide details on how the outreach should have been conducted, nor has she offered concrete trade-offs for which positions should be saved or cut in prior meetings.

The final vote was 4:1 with Trustee Prada registering a No vote and Trustees Bruckner-Carrillo, Rawdon, and Bufete registering a “Cautiously, yes.”