Exclusive | Smoking gun letter reveals LAUSD ignored dire budget warning before approving huge staff pay raises

Los Angeles Unified School District ignored a bombshell letter from its own experts that blockbuster pay rises for staff would cause thousands of layoffs, the California Post can reveal.Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE ) sent every board member a letter on June 12 telling them they would face “severe” budget concerns if they went ahead and approved the hikes.But just four days later, amid the threat of mass strikes, they awarded the huge raises of up to 24% for some workers, including a whopping 14% for teachers depending on experience.Now the district is staring down a roughly $3.6 billion negative reserve balance by 2029, with the new agreements costing about $1.2 billion per year in funds the city does not have.Los Angeles parents were furious the letter was ignored and not disclosed, telling the California Post the mass layoffs that loom is a result of the district’s “bad management.”LACOE’s June 12 letter said: “The fiscal concerns detailed below are severe, and we strongly urge the Board to weigh them carefully prior to ratifying these agreements.“A projected negative ending balance of this magnitude is neither a sustainable operational strategy nor permissible.”The County Office of Education placed LAUSD under heightened fiscal oversight and gave the Board 45 days to deliver a revised budget that will get the district out of the red, which will expire in mid-August.It added if the board moved forward it must immediately submit an updated fiscal stabilization plan (FSP) that addressed the shortfall.Despite the county’s warnings, the board, which originally signaled it would agree to the raises on April as strike action loomed, green lighted the plan just a few days later anyway.LACOE then issued another letter on July 2 demanding they go back to the drawing board, while criticizing its handling of the labor deals.The district’s fiscal stabilization plan “reflects mismanagement of the collective bargaining process,” LACOE...