Thumbnail photo by Paul Critz (Updated at 5:41 p.m. to clarify that Elizabeth Calleja is a parent of Redwood School students. Calleja said Wednesday afternoon that while she's a long-time teacher with Del Norte Unified School District, she currently teaches at Castle Rock Charter School.) Superintendent Jeff Harris pointed to another single-county school district to illustrate what could befall Del Norte Unified if its financial situation didn’t improve. During a budget presentation where trustees learned that DNUSD faces a structural deficit over the next three years, Harris said the other single-district county took out a state loan and, five months later, was facing state receivership. “What that means is the Board loses a lot of [their] authority. Everything is directly reported to the state,” Harris told trustees Monday, adding that student enrollment and revenues have declined statewide. “So it’s really critical that we all keep an eye not only on what’s going on next year, but the two years after that because they ended up owing $10 million on a $40 million budget and they didn’t have enough cash left to cover any of it.” DNUSD Assistant Superintendent of Business Jeff Napier said that Del Norte faces a slow decline in revenue and an increase in expenditures. For the fiscal year that began Monday for example, DNUSD is expected to net $70 million in revenue while having to expend about $74 million, making for a $4.6 million deficit. In 2026-27, DNUSD’s projected deficit is $4.12 million with revenues dropping to $69.8 million from the previous fiscal year and expenditures projected to be $73 million, according to Napier. In 2027-28, with revenues projected to be $68.4 million and expenditures at $74 million, DNUSD faces a projected $5.9 million deficit. Napier said his multi-year projected budget accounts for the ending of one-time funds and the programs they paid for. “It’s not a crystal ball. It’s not set in stone,” Napier said of this projection. “It just says based on the assumptions we know now — what we think we’re going to be getting in revenues for the next two years and what we think we’re going to be putting in expenditures for the next two years —how does all this look? So we don’t all of a sudden go, ‘Oh my gosh, we have no money!’” Napier is stepping down as assistant superintendent of business and will become the principal at Del Norte Community School, according to Director of Communications Michael Hawkins. Greg Bowen, currently the director of fiscal services, will step into Napier’s shoes. Four trustees adopted DNUSD’s 2025-26 budget on Monday. Board President and Trustee Area 4 representative Charlaine Mazzei was absent. The Board’s decision capped a process that began in March and included layoff notices to teachers and classified staff — most of which were rescinded — as well as outcry from parents and staff at Mountain School over the potential loss of a teacher. Trustee Area 1 representative Don McArthur said he and Harris had met with parents and staff at Mountain School in Gasquet to explain the “complexities of staffing.” “I thought we had a good reception,” he said. Juan Orozco, a parent who attended that meeting, agreed that it was a positive experience. But he noted that there were communication challenges and that it was a problem for both parents and the school district. At the Mountain School meeting, Harris and McArthur said parents often don’t show up to school board or budget meetings “unless something upsets them,” Orozco told trustees. “I think that’s an adversarial way of thinking and an oversimplification of the problem,” he said. “I would encourage the Board to think more about a different way of looking at it: How can we engage parents as part of our role? Or, maybe, where are the gaps in our communications? I say this because looking at the Board’s goals, this is literally three of the five goals —strengthening the culture of collaboration between and among staff and in the community.” On Monday, it was a Redwood School teacher parent, Elizabeth Calleja, who spoke out against the possible cut of a fourth- through eighth-grade teacher at her school. “I’m having a hard time making sense of that particular cut because when you look at declining enrollment, we are one of the schools that is not [in] declining enrollment,” she said. “We have people turned away every year that would like to attend our school.” Noting that class sizes are already large at Redwood School, and the decision to cut a single teacher could create a “cascade of combos,” Calleja said all of its students would feel the impact. She also argued that DNUSD could save money by allowing more students to attend Redwood, saying that it’s one of the schools with the lowest per-pupil spending. “It’s the school that has no extra money from the Klamath Promise Neighborhood,” Calleja said. “It’s just the school that’s digging deep to do the best [it] can and I would urge you to think about not reducing that position.” When he began his presentation Monday, Napier said the budget was “pretty much exactly the same” as the preliminary budget he and Bowen put before the Board on June 5. At that presentation, Bowen said the district is expected to receive $45.5 million in state Local Control Funding Formula dollars for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The LCFF dictates the amount of state funding districts receive based on their enrollment and average daily attendance, or ADA. DNUSD’s allocation for this fiscal year is about $140,870 less than its 2024-25 allocation, Bowen told trustees on June 5. Of those LCFF dollars, $8.48 million must be spent on supports for English language learners, foster students, homeless students and those who take part in DNUSD’s free and reduced lunch program. Those supports are outlined in DNUSD’s Local Control Accountability Plan, which the Board also finalized and adopted Monday. School district leaders have blamed the structural deficit on declining enrollment, average daily attendance, the expiration of one-time COVID relief dollars and increased costs. On Monday, Napier said that general fund dollars from the school district have contributed to specialized programs that were supposed to have their own funding. One example he used was special education. When restricted funds allocated toward special education run out, Napier said, DNUSD must kick in enough money to make it whole. This year, he said, DNUSD contributed $10 million toward special education. General fund dollars also goes toward transportation costs even though the state is supposed to contribute 60 percent, Napier said, as well as supports for English language learners. “We are required to provide for English learners, but the state no longer actually gives us money for that,” Napier said. When Trustee Area 5 representative Michael Greer summed up the dilemma by asking if DNUSD is required to contribute a total of about $22 million toward programs that are supposed to be state-funded, Napier answered in the affirmative. In response to Harris’s comment about the smaller single-district county that went into state receivership because it was unable to meet its financial obligations, Greer also pointed out that Oakland Unified School District. Greer acknowledged Harris’s warning, said that DNUSD will have to start making cuts and called upon the community for their help. “They need to be an active part, not just the Board [and] not just the administration,” he said, “so the community knows what they’re going to get or not get.” Like Calleja, however, parents Kathryn Morris and Michelle Reich struggled to wrap their heads around a plan to cut a teacher at Redwood School. Reich, who had asked trustees to consider adding a vice principal to Redwood School at the June 5 meeting, told them that her child would be in a combination class next school year if they go through with the planned cut. Morris also pointed to Redwood School’s lowest per-pupil spending compared to other similar school districts, including Smith River and Mountain. “That means Redwood is operating efficiently and doing more with less,” she said. “Redwood’s coming out with some pretty good test scores in English and math. We’re doing some things right and this seems to reflect the hard work of our teachers and the support systems in place and these systems are now at risk.” Greer thanked Calleja, Morris and Reich and urged them to get involved in a “budget session” he asked district leaders to organize “to decide where the cuts have to be.”