As elected trustees of the San Luis Coastal Unified School District, we are responsible for guiding and overseeing the professionals who run our schools in San Luis Obispo, Los Osos, and Morro Bay. It’s a role that may sound straightforward, but it requires time, careful decision-making, and a deep commitment, because at the center of our work are your children and ours.Â
As a school board, one of our most critical duties is ensuring responsible use of public funds. We now find ourselves navigating tough financial realities:
1. COVID-era funding has ended. This temporary funding allowed us to add 173 staff positions to support academic and wellness programs that are still needed.
2. The state requires us to offer Transitional Kindergarten (TK), an extra year of public education, without providing any funding for basic aid districts like ours. The state allocation for our district, if funded, would be $6 million annually.
3. Pension contributions have risen sharply, with some rates increasing from 7 percent to 28 percent of employee salaries.
4. Day-to-day costs continue to climb, including health care, insurance, utilities, and supplies.
5. Diablo Canyon Power Plant continues to operate, but we no longer receive the same unitary tax revenue from the plant, which once provided $10 million a year to support our schools.
This last issue is especially complex, but our message is simple: As long as Diablo Canyon continues operating, our school district must be compensated.
We had to make difficult choices to balance our budget by reducing $5 million for the 2025-26 school year. As we begin budget planning for 2026-27, we’re facing an additional $5 million in cuts in order to address the structural deficit created by the above conditions.
We will continue advocating alongside other basic aid districts to ensure that universal TK is truly universal. But it’s important to note: We are the only school district in California with an operating nuclear power plant within our boundaries. Whether through annual contributions, legislative action, or the restoration of unitary tax payments, it is only fair that our district receives funding for every year the plant remains active.
More than 85 percent of our district’s budget goes directly to the people who serve and support our students—teachers, aides, counselors, nurses, bus drivers, food services workers, administrators, and many more. Without the revenue we once received from PG&E through the unitary tax, we will face significant staff reductions. That means real impacts to programs and services that students rely on.
Despite the challenges, we remain focused on what matters most: providing excellent education, supporting student wellness, partnering with families, investing in our staff, and maintaining fiscal responsibility.
We are deeply grateful to the parents, nonprofit partners, public agencies, local businesses, and the San Luis Coastal Education Foundation who support our schools. Now, we ask that PG&E—and our representatives in the state Legislature—do their part.
It is time to restore a fair, sustainable source of funding for our schools, through unitary tax or other reliable means. Our students deserve nothing less. ∆
San Luis Coastal Unified School District trustees Robert Banfield, Mark Buchman, Brian Clausen, Erica Flores Baltodano, Marilyn Rodger, Ellen Sheffer, and Chris Ungar wrote this opinion piece. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 16-26, 2025.
Residents should take a hard look at their PG&E bills. You will notice that the cost of the electricity that you used represents very roughly only 1/3 of the amount charged, with the balance of the bill being for “distribution” and other costs, programs and assessments. This proposed “unitary tax” would add significantly to this balance and increase what are already brutal “incidental” charges on the electricity that we use.
It was not long ago that the highest energy charges a resident faced were for natural gas, with electricity being far less. It seems that things have reversed. At a time when we are being asked to use electricity instead of gas to help the environment, is this smart pricing policy? Are all the charges on our electrical bill really necessary? This “unitary tax” seems to be a charge that is assessed merely because there is money there, and someone wants money.
It is time to get serious about planning for life without Diablo. It was (and remains–no pun intended) a Devil’s Bargain.