The Los Angeles Unified School District board voted 5-2 on May 21, 2026 to approve the elimination of 657 positions by June 30, with an additional 74 roles seeing reduced hours. This is the first phase of a fiscal stabilization plan that could cut up to 6,000 jobs, more than 10% of the district's approximately 60,000-person workforce, over three years.
LAUSD, the second-largest school district in the United States, faces structural budget deficits that accelerate sharply: a projected $1.4 billion shortfall in 2027-28 ballooning to $3.6 billion in 2028-29, more than twice the size of past shortfalls. The cuts target IT workers, office technicians, parent support staff, and equity programs. District leadership previewed that future rounds may include mandatory furlough days, elimination of student equity funding, and school consolidations.
The reductions will save approximately $90 million annually. Acting superintendent framed the action as "a difficult and necessary response to structural fiscal" budget challenges, not a reflection of employee performance. The scale of what is coming, potentially over 10% of the entire workforce, positions this as one of the largest government workforce reductions of 2026.