Budget Fails at Los Angeles Unified
With the recent, very vocal advocacy of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers against school choice, Title IX enforcement, immigration enforcement, and the Trump administration in general, I decided to look at some school district numbers and finances.
Los Angeles Unified School District is, by far, the largest school district in the United States, making it a formidable force in Los Angeles and California state politics. By extension, it has excessive influence on national policy and lobbying. When I started looking into their published inner workings, however, I realized I had grossly underestimated LAUSD’s full scope and accompanying problems. The district’s annual budget for FY 2023-24 ran $18.4 Billion and includes Federal, state, and local funds, which is over 14.24% of the $129.2 billion of overall Federal, state, and local education spending in the state of California in FY 2023-24. To put that number in perspective,19 states have smaller budgets than LAUSD, and LAUSD’s annual budget is over four times that of the entire state of South Dakota.
Part of the reason for that enormous level of expenditure is LAUSD’s sheer size. As indicated above, it’s the largest district in the country, with a student body of 402,600. However, according to an article from Center Square on the district’s 2025 budget (and my calculator), that $18.4 billion works out to $45,703 in spending per student, including $23,791 from Federal and state sources, according to the California Department of Education. In comparison, the average cost of tuition for private school enrollment in Los Angeles runs a measly $18,525, while the state average for private schools in California is $17,894. What does all that money get Los Angeles students? Not a whole lot. Even though the starting pay for LAUSD’s teachers is over 20% higher than the per capita income of Los Angeles residents, 57% of students fail to meet the state’s reading standards, and over two thirds are below standard for math. Do not forget that the student body being failed LAUSD is disproportionately made up of minorities, whose rights and opportunity leftwing politicians and public employee unions claim to cherish. On top of all that, the district is still anticipating a $1.3 billion deficit by 2028 and has approximately $80 billion in facility maintenance costs they haven’t even included in their current budgeting plans.
It’s no wonder, then, that the district and associated unions are fighting tooth and nail not to lose students to private, charter, and home schools, or that they would so adamantly oppose immigration enforcement. LAUSD, despite seeing a 229% increase in per student spending since 2012, has faced a 29% drop in enrollment over the same period while inexplicably increasing their staff by 21%. A lot of that enrollment drop comes from people leaving the city or leaving California altogether, but it also comes from persistently declining American fertility rates. As Americans, and really everyone in the world, have fewer children, there are predictably fewer school aged children. A school district staring down a $1.3 billion deficit and $80 billion in unaddressed liabilities simply can’t afford to lose students from any other source, especially when it refuses to countenance cuts or engage in meaningful reform to improve academic outcomes. As the young people say: “the math simply doesn’t math.”
It is estimated that approximately one million of California’s school children are either illegal immigrants themselves (somewhere between 133,000 and 300,000) or have at least one parent who is. Those students make up just over 17% of California’s total K12 student body, but represent almost $23.8 billion in per-student funding from the state, including approximately $23.8 million from the Federal government. If we split the estimated range, and assume that 225,000 of those million students are in the US illegally, they represent a bit over $5.35 billion in state and Federal funding, which is nothing to sneeze at.
Specific to LAUSD, it is estimated that about 30,000 students are immigrants, and about a quarter of them are here illegally. Again, 30,000 isn’t that many in the grand scheme of things. Immigrant students make up less than 10% of the LAUSD student body, meaning that illegal immigrants make up around 2.5%, but numbers add up. If LAUSD receives $45,703 per student from federal, state, and local sources, then students who are immigrants represent over $1.37 billion in funding. Those 7500 immigrant students who are here illegally, while only 2.5% of the total number of students are worth almost $342.7 million in funding. From the perspective of the schools and the teachers’ union, these are also the ideal students, because parents who are hiding from ICE are parents who are unlikely to demand special services for their children or shine unwanted light on problems within the schools, such as predatory staff and teachers, poor building maintenance, substandard academics, or gang activity on campus.
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policy, while currently focused on illegal immigrants with serious criminal records and/or gang affiliations, could easily turn LAUSD’s dire financial situation into an existential crisis that would simultaneously lay bare the district’s profligate spending and academic failures and expose the roll the teacher’s unions have played in ensuring bad policy.
While LAUSD is the largest district in the country and a particularly egregious example of bad education management, it is hardly an isolated case. Bad and irresponsible school districts abound all across the country. The numbers out of Los Angeles simply emphasize the urgency of putting a stop to all the bad policies. The stark fact is that private schools accomplish a whole lot more with a whole lot less. A school board that wants to make meaningful changes and become the good example, rather than the terrible warning, would do well to examine what makes private schools succeed and try to figure out how to emulate them in the public school environment.
The districts and the unions must also face the reality that declining fertility and migration from some parts of the country to the others mean that the necessity of streamlining and consolidating both facilities and staff is simply a fact of life. LAUSD currently employs 81,300 staff (that includes, teachers, administrators, aids, maintenance, etc.), which is approximately one employee for every 5 students. That isn’t sustainable, especially since enrollment isn’t going to increase any time soon. Schools exist to produce educated students who graduate ready for life in our increasingly complex high tech society, not to employ a maximum number of union employees.
Likewise, that $80 billion in unfunded facility maintenance costs would drop substantially if LAUSD were to consolidate schools and other properties to reflect its shrinking student body. The district owns 13,650 school buildings, sitting on 6370 acres. That’s a lot to maintain, using a lot of staff, and includes a lot of utility and insurance costs. When unions fight or strike against those kinds of cuts, they aren’t protecting teachers and staff: they are refusing to face reality, and it hurts everyone in the long run.
LAUSD, its counterparts around the country, and all the teachers’ and administrators’ unions need to be audited. The financial decisions they make together are beyond unsound; they are patently absurd! This isn’t and shouldn’t be a political statement. Educational institutions that willfully hurtle headlong into a fiscal abyss do not have the capacity to educate children. Moreover, their bad financial decisions are a deliberate abuse of taxpayer funds. Any entity receiving public funds should be held to a high standard when it comes to spending, management, and results. Right now, Los Angeles Unified School District, along with many other districts around the country, has spectacularly failed to meet any of those standards. We all deserve better, especially our children.
