Teachers, students, parents and community members came from all over Plumas County Feb. 8 to meet with the Plumas Unified School District board. On the agenda: resolutions to layoff certificated and classified staff for the upcoming 2026-27 school year. The goal: to close a $9.5 million ongoing structural deficit in the PUSD budget. That’s a whopping 27% of the $34.4 million total budget.
The positions identified for elimination included 19 teachers, 38 classified staff and one principal. Among the classified staff roles were cook managers, administrative assistants, attendance clerks, a behavioral specialist, bus drivers, custodians, library media specialists, paraprofessional aides and student services coordinators. The district employs a total of 135 certified and 156 classified staff.
State-appointed county administrator Richard DuVarney was tasked with making the final decision on the budget cuts. Plumas County Office of Education board members had a short meeting before the PUSD session. They listened quietly in the audience, having given up their PUSD governance responsibilities when the district entered into state receivership last June.
DuVarney called the meeting to order and welcomed attendees, saying he wanted to hear from everyone. “I’d like to give special thanks to the students for being here,” said DuVarney, addressing the many students in the audience who showed up carrying homemade signs protesting against the proposed budget cuts.
Other attendees in the room included three California Department of Education staff, who observed and took notes, as well as two Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team staffers. FCMAT CEO Mike Fine attended on Zoom. Representatives of the regional California Teachers Association were also in attendance. The combination of officials was witness to the gravity of the decisions to be made.
Public protests
Thirteen people stepped up to the podium to address DuVarney and Plumas County Office of Education Superintendent Andrea White.
Alicia Banning spoke first. She identified herself as a parent, a community member, a Portola high school teacher and president of the Plumas County Teachers Association. Banning described how she and her family moved to the area in 2021, hoping to raise children in a community with a safer and smaller classroom environment. Her son, who is currently a senior, is already unable to get the classes he wanted because of previous budget cuts, she said. In just a week, 600 community members signed a petition against the budget cuts that resulted in the layoffs.
“Please for the sake of the Plumas County children, do not layoff teachers and support staff,” said Banning. “They are under-resourced already and will be more disadvantaged than they already are!”
“Teachers don’t need a target on their back. They are important and dedicated.”
Bill Reid, Portola resident and grandfather
Bill Reid, a Portola resident, business and property owner, expressed his support for teachers and their impact in the community. “Teachers don’t need a target on their back. They are important and dedicated,” he said.
Reid’s two grandchildren attend C. Roy Carmichael Elementary School. He described his granddaughter’s excitement and the “glimmer in her eye” when seeing a teacher from the school at a local restaurant.
She got up and ran to hug the teacher — even though it wasn’t her own teacher. She just loved her, Reid said.
“Don’t pull the rug out. It is a failure to the community. Don’t douse the glimmer in their eyes!” said Reid.
Tania Hutchins, a recently retired Quincy Jr.-Sr. High School teacher, expressed outrage. “Don’t do this to our students. Do what is best for our students,” She said.
Other speakers brought up the difficulty in managing increased class sizes and multi-grade classrooms. Some mentioned the detriment to students in reducing career and technical skill classes: automotive, culinary, art and woodworking. Still others complained about limiting library staff and classified professionals.
Criticisms of the cuts included behavioral specialists when so much grant funding is available, one speaker said. The ratio of administrative staff to certified and classified staff came up numerous times. Some pleaded with the administration to think out of the box and find another solution.
DuVarney thanked those who commented, saying, “comments considered.”
Mike Fine addresses budget cuts
Fine, the CEO of FCMAT, apologized for not being in Quincy in person. He briefly reviewed the financial situation that necessitated PUSD’s emergency loan.
“I understand the community’s outrage and I wish they would have expressed the same outrage over a year ago to the elected and appointed board and the previous superintendent in place at the time, because they are the cause of this.” said Fine.
Now, he said, it’s up to the current team to clean up their mess, close the gap between revenue and expenditure and pay back the state loan with interest. To do that, current administrators need to cut $9.5 million in annual spending. Those measures should have been taken last year, or the year before that, Fine said.
“But your elected board and leadership elected to not do that. It put the district and families in jeopardy,” he said.
Fine said interim business manager Stephanie Shatto and Duvarney have “made some very difficult decisions” and “taken aggressive steps to stabilize the district.” He also discussed the late audits and unmet requirements identified in the FCMAT report.
“To get to the point, there was dysfunction in all areas, even student instruction,” Fine said
He finished by giving thanks to the state education department team for attending.
“I wish they would have expressed the same outrage over a year ago to the elected and appointed board and the previous superintendent in place at the time, because they are the cause of this.”
Mike Fine, FCMAT CEO
The final PUSD fiscal stabilization plan
Over the past several months PUSD and PCOE have gathered community feedback to help shape a fiscal plan to address the district’s insolvency, and to inform revisions on the first draft. Now, that plan is final.
It must do three things, Shatto said: Meet cashflow, establish a minimum 3% reserve and eliminate $9.5 million a year from the budget. The first $7.5 million draw-down from the state loan carries 6.4% annual interest, which will amount to $11 million over the 30-year term, Shatto said. The total for repayment, including the principal, is over $18 million, DuVarney told The Plumas Sun in a Feb. 9 email. “If the district can avoid drawing any more of the $20 million available through the loan,” he said, “we give ourselves the chance to come out of this.”
Eighty percent of the district budget is spent on staffing, Shatto said. As part of her analysis, she considered student-to-teacher ratios over the last 10 years. In that decade enrollment declined 18.65% — but full-time equivalent staff increased 8.29%, she said
The expense of that increased staffing was exacerbated by poor financial management and accounting practices, Shatto said.. “There were significant raises given that the district could not afford because there was no money because required budget disclosures were never done,” she said.
“We only get $ 1.3 million from the state annually. We are a basic aid district that relies on local property tax,” Said Shatto.
Some changes have already been made. Those include:
| Item | Amount saved |
| 2025 PCOE staffing adjustments, including eliminating HR director, and reducing or reclassifying several other roles | $198,729.35 |
| Eliminating 34.4 vacant positions in December | $1.8 million |
The February cuts are as follows:
| Item | Amount saved |
| 13.24% reduction in certified staffing (teachers) | $993,457 |
| 10% PUSD administration staff and vacancies | $192,721.12 |
| 25.75% of PCOE classified staff and vacancies | $1,652,827.70 |
| Cutting bus service (except for special education transportation) | $2 million |
Even so, the total cuts still come in $1.5 million short of the target, Shatto said. But, she added, the closing of Quincy Elementary’s Pioneer campus will result in some savings. The district is also looking at options such as cutting travel, contracted services, licensing and subscriptions, overtime and other expenses.
Following the presentation, DuVarney approved the Fiscal Stabilization Plan and PUSD resolution 1696, which eliminates the 17 vacant positions.
Human Resources Supervisor and Classified Human Resources Specialist Jennifer Nesbit presented three PUSD resolutions for DuVarney’s approval:
- PUSD Resolution 1697 “Reduction or Discontinuance of Classified Services for Lack of Work or Lack of Funds” eliminated the 38 classified staff roles for 2026-27
- PUSD Resolution 1698 “Reduction or Discontinuance of Particular Kinds of Service” eliminated the 19 certified (teacher) roles for 2026-27
- PUSD Resolution 1699 “Reduction or Discontinuance of Particular Kinds of Service (Administrative Personnel)” eliminated the principal role for 2026-27
DuVarney approved all three resolutions.
After the decisions, Banning, the PCTA president, commented by email: “Teacher layoffs mean students lose trusted adults, personal support and opportunities they may never get back. In small rural schools, every teacher matters — when we cut educators, we cut directly into our children’s futures.”
Theresa Belsher-Howe, president of California School Employees Association #193, wrote, “These cuts are devastating to classified employees and the students we serve. Each and every classified position eliminated by the district represents valuable services that will no longer be provided directly to our students. As a result our students will suffer.”
“These reductions are extremely unfortunate,” DuVarney wrote to The Plumas Sun in his Feb. 9 email. “We are doing all we can to minimize the impacts and understand the hardship on staff and families.”
But, he added, the cuts are “imperative” for the district “to avoid further dependency on the state loan and particularly the interest that goes along with it.”
PUSD staff were notified by email that layoffs notices for impacted positions will be sent out the week of Feb. 23.
Source: Plumas Sun
