On Monday, June 16, 2025, Mayor Dan O’Brien and Council member Yasmine Imani McMorrin met with School Board President Triston Ezidore and representative Stephanie Loredo at the CCUSD Offices in the Madeline Ehrlich Board Room for the quarterly meeting between the City Council and the School Board. This was also Dr. Brian Lucas’ last meeting as the CCUSD Superintendent.
The current budget for the district for 2025 will see some challenging impacts for schools.
Among the issues brought up for discussion was the district’s call for more local revenue. Citing the joint use agreement between the Santa Monica/Malibu School District with the city of Santa Monica, Lucas noted that expanding the joint use agreement with CCUSD will give the city more availability to use the district’s facilities for Parks and Rec programming would benefit the community in many ways.
Offering that most school districts in Southern California receive between 32% and 36% of their revenue from local sources, CCUSD receives only 5%.
The 2025 budget has included laying off both staff and other ‘austerity measures’ to meet the required goals. This budget also includes the district drawing on restricted Redevelopment funds of $3.2 million as a one-time stop gap measure; those funds expire at the end of 2028, and another $4 million must be found to keep the district from state mandated interventions.
The district also proposed that the city take over the cost of the student “Go Pass” for public transit and the Safe Routes to School program.
Judith Martin-Straw
