Tacoma Public Schools cuts jobs amid $30M deficit, warns of more to come
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Tacoma Public Schools Budget Woes
Facing a $30M deficit, Tacoma Public Schools has cut 105 provisional roles and reshuffled staff. More program cuts and job changes are expected.
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Pierce County’s largest school district has cut scores of staff positions and displaced dozens of other staff as it contends with a $30 million budget deficit.
Tacoma Public Schools said in a statement May 16 that the district did not renew the contracts for 105 provisional employees for the 2025-2026 school year. District officials also made changes “that directly impacted 118 education support professionals and 30 office professionals/professional technical staff,” but the district’s statement did not say what the change entailed. The district will continue to implement program cuts and displace staff until June 13, according to the statement.
“Unfortunately, the changes made to date do not get us to a balanced budget for the 2025-26 school year,” the statement reads. “We still have more work to do.”
District officials have cited rising costs and insufficient funding from the state as part of the reason for its $30 million deficit this year and said that financial insolvency is a possibility.
The 105 staff whose contracts have not been renewed this year are provisional certificated employees — workers who have some sort of credential from the state of Washington to do their jobs with the district and are in their first, second or third year in their positions.
The district also displaced 59 certificated staff this week, meaning that they will still be employed by the district but will hold different positions in the next academic year, according to the statement. Some are due to enrollment changes, but others are due to cuts to district programs and offerings like elementary counselors and bilingual specialists.
“Using the school board’s guiding principles, we are committed to keeping as many of our team members as possible,” the statement reads. “We are following each collective bargaining agreement and working with labor partners to find a similar fit for them somewhere in our school district.”
The district’s announcement on the latest cuts comes about one week ahead of the district’s next board meeting on May 22, when a coalition of the unions that bargain with the district is planning a rally to call for transparency on the budget process and a collaborative approach to implementing changes.
“We do not take lightly the decisions about our budget and staffing,” the district’s statement reads. “We know that these are people who have made significant impacts on the lives of our students, staff, and families.”
This story was originally published May 16, 2025 at 2:51 PM.
