Salem-Keizer Public Schools announced last month that hundreds fewer people will work for the state’s second-largest district by the start of next school year. At the end of November, they put a number to the first round of cuts to programs, spending and personnel — $30 million. Now, Superintendent Andrea Castañeda is getting even more specific with the reductions she’s proposing.
The Salem-area community has known for months that something like this was coming. Castañeda said in August, shortly after she became superintendent, that the district was already looking at a harsh financial picture in 2024 if they didn’t act soon.
Related: Salem-Keizer schools announce $30M in cuts — with more to come
“We’re navigating through a moment of uncertainty, and with uncertainty comes anxiety and fear,” Castañeda said in a press conference last Thursday. “We know that, and we are traveling through that same experience with everyone else.
“But our responsibility as a district team, and our responsibility as an organization, is to take urgent action so that this fiscal challenge is addressed responsibly, intentionally and transparently,” she said. “And that means taking the entire year to do this work.”
Since August, the district has frozen hiring for most positions, which Castañeda said has been the primary way they reduced spending projections by millions of dollars.
But the district will still need to save around $70 million. The exact amount depends largely on how much new contracts for the district’s unions will cost.
Last week’s announcement outlines about $31 million in proposed savings so far, split into three categories.
Cuts in salary, spending and positions
The first category of cuts focuses on salary concessions — meaning no cost-of-living adjustments next year for district-level administrators — and reduced spending.
This includes reducing district purchasing on things like technology, suspending purchases of new district vehicles, and lessening conference travel. As previously reported by OPB, Castañeda said she will give away $30,000 of her own salary to help pay for other programs.
These steps account for about $7 million in savings.
The second category makes adjustments and pauses on program expansions. For this, Salem-Keizer will reduce how much it sets aside as a “financial safety cushion” in the debt service account for its employee retirement program, or PERS.
They also plan to reduce the budget for updates to smaller investments, such as playground equipment and school furniture. The district also plans to postpone opening new career and technical education programs and increase what Salem-Keizer charges outside organizations to rent their facilities.
This portion fills another $19 million of the budget gap.
The final category is staff cuts. The district is proposing a total of 46 positions to be eliminated from next year’s budget.
Seven of the proposed reductions are administrator positions, 29 are classified jobs, and 10 are licensed educators. Licensed educators include teachers and registered nurses; classified staff typically refers to support staff, such as secretaries, translators and assistants. Castañeda said administrators, in this case, are district-level workers, not school administrators, like principals.
The district-level administrators refer to 1% of the district’s total workforce, she said, and make up 11% of this round of cuts.
Of the 46 positions identified for cuts, 16 are currently vacant, meaning their elimination won’t cost someone their job. Castañeda said the vacancies are still a loss to the system because “what we’re saying is the services that that position would have provided, we are going to have to do without.”
Thirty of the positions are currently held by district employees.
Salem-Keizer Education Association President Tyler Scialo-Lakeberg said the union was shocked and appalled by the news.
“We have been promised that the position cuts will come from [the] district level first and preserve student-facing positions to the greatest extent possible,” Scialo-Lakeberg told OPB in an email. “About half of the positions are student-facing, including all the [licensed practical nurse education assistants] and five registered nursing positions.
“This is unacceptable,” she said.
The staff reductions are estimated to save about $5 million.
The Salem-Keizer Public Schools logo photographed outside the district's Student Support Services Center on Dec. 7, 2023, in Salem, Ore.
Natalie Pate / OPB
Those let go in December can keep their jobs through the current school year. Depending on individuals’ qualifications, they may be able to move to another position in the district.
Castañeda said staff might leave sooner, which could hurt the district. However, she felt it was important to tell those affected now.
“[A]lthough this information is so difficult to say and difficult to hear, we do believe that people deserve to know as much as we can tell them about their situation as early as we can,” she said. “We believe it’s the respectful thing to do, and it’s the honest thing to do.”
What happens next?
The district is currently in mediation with its teachers union, SKEA, and its classified union, the Association of Salem-Keizer Education Support Professionals, or ASK ESP.
The district has one more mediation session scheduled with SKEA on Dec. 19 and its first with ASK ESP on Dec. 28. Both unions have reached some tentative agreements with the district.
When bargaining is finished, the district will assess the financial gap and how much they still need to cut in the spring budget season. It is not yet known when the next round of cuts will be decided, but Castañeda said in November that more will likely happen in late winter or early spring.
Castañeda knows the district will need to make up tens of millions of dollars no matter what happens in bargaining.
“Even not knowing the scope of it, I can make a prediction today that I believe will be true,” she said. “Our contracts will settle with less than our staff deserve and more than our system can afford.”
The entire budget package will have to go to the board for approval in the spring, not just this round of cuts. More cuts are needed in order to present the board with a balanced budget proposal.
Castañeda plans to pay close attention to lawmakers’ actions this spring. She said the short legislative session will set the tone for whether or not a “funding formula redesign is a legislative priority in the ‘25 biennium.”
Related: Oregon school funding is complicated. We try to break it down
She said advocates need to start exploring solutions that could transform Oregon’s funding formula “from its current archaic state” into “a national proof point for what a post-pandemic vision of schools is and how it is funded.”
Castañeda said that work doesn’t require much money or additional investments, but “it does require political courage and time.”
“It requires the elevation of this as a priority,” she said, “... and recognizes that the future of Oregon’s K-12 system is the future of Oregon.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct and add the dates when each union is meeting with Salem-Keizer administrators later this month.