• Overview
• Certificated Staff
• Classified Staff

Overview
The most difficult aspect of budget development involves planning the potential layoffs of staff. The law requires specific timelines and processes be followed. Notices about possible layoffs must be sent to certificated staff by March 15 of each year. Notices to classified staff must be sent at least 45 days in advance of a layoff.

Certificated Staff
Assuming that staffing reductions are effective at the end of the current fiscal year, the layoff process for certificated staff has an earlier deadline than for classified staff. School agencies must begin the certificated layoff process first.

Education Code Section (E.C.) 44955 specifies the reasons for which certificated staff reductions can occur, including declining enrollment and/or a need to reduce particular kinds of services (commonly referred to as “PKS”). Employees are given notice in reverse order of seniority. Temporary employees receive first notice, then probationary employees, and then permanent employees until the number of positions that need to be eliminated is reached. Exceptions to the seniority order can be made in order to retain lower seniority teachers who have particular specializations or for equal protection under the Constitution (per E.C. 44955[d]).

Certificated employees identified to receive layoff notices must be notified in writing by March 15 of the year before the layoff is effective (per E.C. 44949). Employees then have a right to request a hearing. These proceedings are conducted in accordance with Government Code Sections 11500 et seq. The hearing process must be concluded and the proposed decision of the administrative law judge must be submitted to the Board and to the employee before May 7. The school agency must give the final notice of termination to the employee by May 15. Because of the initial March 15 deadline, school agencies must start immediately to get seniority lists in order and make sure that each employee’s status (temporary, probationary, or permanent), credentials, and assignment information is up-to-date. After March 15, it is too late to notify any more employees or add to the layoff list. Any of the notices already given can be rescinded at any time after that date.

There is another layoff window established in statute that runs from five days after the adoption of the State Budget to August 15, but only if the school agency’s increase in revenue limit per ADA is less than 2% (per E.C. 44955.5). The funding (or lack thereof) proposed in Governor Schwarzenegger’s Budget for 2008-09 would qualify a school agency for this provision. The key is that there needs to be enough time between the enactment of the final State Budget and August 15 to effect the layoff process. If the State Budget is adopted after that time, the additional layoff window is lost.

Classified Staff
All classified employees who are subject to layoff due to lack of work and/or lack of funds must receive notice at least 45 days in advance of the effective date of the layoff (per E.C. 45117 and 45308). For specially funded programs that are expiring, the classified employees in those programs must receive written notice by April 29 for the layoff to be effective at the end of the school year. If the termination of the program is other than at the end of the school year, the employees affected must receive notice at least 45 days before the effective date of the layoff (per E.C. 45117).

Classified employee layoffs occur in ascending order by seniority in that classification. Length of service in higher classifications is added to the employee’s seniority as well. Classified employees laid off due to lack of funds or lack of work are then placed on a 39-month re-employment list, and are reemployed in descending order by seniority, the reverse order from the layoff process (E.C. 45298 and 45308).

For employees in positions within the classified service who are designated by the Board as senior management through adoption of a resolution (per E.C. 45100.5), the Board must notify them at least 45 days before the expiration of their term of employment if they will not be reemployed.

Source: School Services of California