The Brief

Facing a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall for the upcoming school year, Pasadena Unified's school board voted unanimously this week to finalize a plan to send layoff notices to more than 160 staff members as part of an effort to balance its budget that began last fall.

The district has maintained that the job reductions are necessary because of a $30 million budget deficit, part of a financial crisis made worse by the Eaton Fire.

California schools must notify employees about potential layoffs for the following school year by March 15. The number of current employees who will be out of a job next year is still unclear, in part, because people may be reassigned to vacant positions. In the past, PUSD has also rescinded some layoff notices before they took effect.

Parents, teachers and union leaders at the Thursday meeting criticized the district for targeting teachers and school staff for layoffs instead of administrative positions.

“ Teaching for PUSD means anxiety every March as it approaches, because we don't know if we're going to get to keep our job or not,” said Genevieve Miller, a PUSD teacher who said her children also graduated from the district. “ There's a different way forward.”

Board members acknowledged the decision they made was difficult.

“ I just want to be very clear that this is not the outcome that anybody prefers,” Board member Yarma Velázquez said. “Workforce reductions and the continuous, year after year position of being in this place where we have to reduce positions is draining and it is painful.

“I am very aware of what the implications are for all of the people that work here at PUSD.”

The board meeting

At the meeting, which started at 4 p.m. and nearly lasted until midnight, parents highlighted the potential of families and teachers choosing to leave the district because of the layoffs.

“ Right now, the [PUSD] community is in fight mode, as you can see from the turnout and other comments being made here tonight,” said parent Neil Tyler. “But if you approve these resolutions as proposed tonight, a large chunk of the community will quickly shift to flight mode and the death spiral of this district will begin.”

Jonathan Gardner, president of United Teachers of Pasadena, told the board that the cuts meant the district would lose dozens of middle and high school teachers and child development staff.

“ The best thing for kids and staff is always stability and making sure that we have full staff,” Gardner said. “The priorities should be working from the student experience out. Instead, what we see is millions and millions of dollars being spent on contracted services and millions and millions being spent on extra staffing at the central office.”

Speakers also noted that Pasadena Unified had endured years of budget cuts, which affected teachers, librarians and office staff.

Others said PUSD was failing to meet its requirement under California law to commit at least 55% of the district’s education expenses to teacher salaries.

LAist reached out to the district for comment on this but has not yet received a response.

Pasadena Unified board members said the cuts were necessary, especially after warnings from regulators that they could be out of compliance with requirements to balance the budget.

“For the sake of the district's solvency, I feel like it would be irresponsible if I took an action that put this district in jeopardy,” board member Michelle Bailey said Thursday night. “I can't in good conscience take that kind of action.”

About the budget issues

Concerns over declining enrollment numbers, which are tied to funding, have been growing since the Eaton Fire.

A report commissioned by a state agency recommended that the state increase its funding for the school system to help with fire recovery.

Some observers said Pasadena Unified’s budget issues date back much longer than that.

“Over the past 30 years, Pasadena Unified has faced a mounting fiscal calamity, one that you can no longer ignore or postpone,” Octavio Castelo, director of business advisory services for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, told Pasadena Unified’s board in November. “Despite your best efforts and intentions, the district has not been able to live within its means."

Cutting staff will likely mean losing some school programs, including language and music.

“ You have Mary Jackson [Elementary in Altadena] — it's a science magnet school, and they're cutting the science teacher,” Gardner, the teacher’s union president, told LAist. “That's the heart of the school.”

What happens next

The layoff notices are expected to be sent to affected staff members by mid-March.

The district will have until summer to finalize the list.

K-12 education reporter Mariana Dale contributed reporting.

The Los Angeles Unified School Board voted unanimously Friday to place Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.

The FBI searched Carvalho’s home and district offices Wednesday. A DOJ spokesperson said the agency had a court-authorized warrant but declined to provide additional details. The FBI told LAist’s media partner CBS LA that the underlying affidavit remained under court-ordered seal.

The board also appointed current Chief of School Operations Andres Chait as acting superintendent after the seven-hour closed meeting Thursday and Friday.

“I know that this is a very challenging time,” said Board President Scott Schmerelson in a brief public statement after the decision was announced. “I want you to know that the board believes in you, supports you and knows that you will continue to do your very best to support the students and families of the district.”

Schmerelson clarified in an email to LAist, he was referring to Chait. The seven-member board exited the meeting room without taking questions. Carvalho was not present and has not made a public statement since the searches Wednesday.

The district posted a statement online later in which Schmerelson wrote “today’s action is aimed at fulfilling our promise to students and families to provide an excellent public education without distraction.”

The board’s decision provided clarity about district leadership, but did not shed light on the reason for the searches, which have been the subject of widespread speculation.

“While we understand the need for information, we cannot discuss the specifics of this matter pending investigation,” read the district’s statement.

Who is the acting superintendent?

Chait has worked for the district for nearly three decades. The chief of school operations’ responsibilities are varied and include athletics, the district’s office of emergency management and staff investigations. Chait has presented to the board on everything from school safety to the cell phone ban and the district’s calendar.

Chief of School Operations Andres Chait has worked for LAUSD for nearly three decades.

(

Courtesy of Los Angeles Unified School District

)

“I am humbled by the Board’s confidence in appointing me to serve as acting superintendent during this critical time," Chait said in the district’s statement. "Our focus remains clear: to ensure stability, continuity, and strong leadership for our students, families, and employees."

What we know about AllHere, LAUSD’s AI tool

A spokesperson for the FBI in Miami confirmed Wednesday’s L.A. searches are linked to a search of a South Florida home the same day. That property, identified by local media outlets, belongs to Debra Kerr, who was associated with the company LAUSD contracted to create a short-lived AI tool called AllHere.

Federal authorities have not connected AllHere to this week’s investigation.

Los Angeles Unified approved a $6.2 million contract with AllHere in June 2023 to develop a tool that would create an “individual acceleration plan,” using district data and featuring an artificial intelligence chatbot.

LAUSD debuted “Ed” the following March as a "personal assistant" to students that would point them toward mental health resources and nudge students who were falling behind.

Within three months of its debut, the company behind Ed, AllHere, furloughed the bulk of its staff; its CEO was later charged with fraud. The district defended the process it used to debut that chatbot, which cost $3 million.

Parents and educators demanded transparency after the district shut down the chatbot.

Many questions remain

The federal investigation comes at a time when LAUSD is financially strained, cutting hundreds of jobs, and facing pressure from the district’s largest labor unions to settle new contracts.

SEIU Local 99, which represents school support staff and United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) have issued statements calling on the district to clearly communicate about the status of the superintendent and the investigation.

"UTLA educators and our school communities have long raised concerns about LAUSD rapidly increasing spending on education tech and outside contractors, while investment in classrooms and educators has declined,” UTLA wrote in a statement provided to LAist.

Carvalho has been superintendent of LAUSD since 2022, and the board unanimously renewed his contract in 2025. Prior to coming to L.A., Carvalho had worked for the Miami-Dade County school district for decades, 30 years as a teacher and the last 14 years as the district's supervisor.

Carvalho's time at LAUSD has included a number of wins for the district, including gains in test scores and participation in AP classes.

After threatening to sever ties with Scouting America and kick the youth group off military bases worldwide, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday gave a six-month reprieve to the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America.

Hegseth made the announcement in a video posted to X, framing it as an ultimatum to Scouting to conform to the Trump administration's anti-DEI agenda. He detailed his many criticisms of the group, saying Scouts had "lost their way" by changing the organization's name and "watering down" what he called "the focus on God as the ruler of the universe."

He accused the Scouts of promoting "an insidious, radical, woke ideology that is anti-America and anti-American."

Hegseth also made clear he thinks the organization should go back to being exclusively male. " Ideally, I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as originally founded, a group that develops boys into men," he said. "Maybe someday."

The Pentagon's promise to reevaluate its relationship with Scouting in six months was nonetheless a retreat of sorts for Hegseth. Today's announcement came after word of Hegseth's plans to shun Scouting sparked weeks of backlash, including from some Republicans. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska has said of Hegseth's plans: "I've heard a lot of dumb stuff, but this is up there."

In a meeting with Scouting officials in January, Hegseth had demanded that the organization change its name back to Boy Scouts and remove some 200,000 young girls from its membership.

" I knew in the meeting that my board, my organization, was not gonna make those changes," Scouting America CEO Roger Krone said in an interview with NPR.

Krone explained that the organization considers including girls to be a service to families.

" When I was a youth, we left parts of the family in the parking lot on Friday night when we went camping," Krone said. "Long before I came back to Scouting, our board made several decisions, by a vote of our national council, that we were gonna serve the entire family."

A week after the Pentagon meeting, Scouting officials sent a letter to Hegseth outlining proposed concessions. While they wouldn't change the name or kick out girls, they would drop a Citizenship in Society merit badge that promoted diversity and had been instituted after the killing of George Floyd. They would also add a Military Service merit badge, waive membership fees for military families and offer a public rededication "of duty to God, duty to country, and service."

Even after the concessions, which Scouting officials said they planned to implement regardless, a spokesman told NPR the group expected an announcement from the Pentagon severing ties was imminent. But after NPR reported on the rift, Krone said Scouting's members and alumni started lobbying against breaking the century-old partnership.

Hegseth has for years criticized Scouting for allegedly caving to progressive politics. He repeated the claim Friday. "Scouting became an organization that no longer supported and celebrated boys," Hegseth said. "They even welcomed the destructive myth of gender fluidity and transgenderism to infiltrate their membership."

The Secretary also highlighted another concession. "Scouting America will modify its policy to make clear that membership will be based solely on biological sex at birth and not gender identity," he said. "That means that the application, any application, will have only two sex designations, male and female, and the application must match the applicant's birth certificate."

Krone noted that the Scouting application already has only two sex designations. " Tomorrow it will be the same application that we had yesterday," he said. "We ask for that information so we can operate our units in a way that ensures that our kids are safe and are safeguarded."

In the wake of sexual abuse allegations that resulted in a $2.46 billion victim compensation fund, Krone says Scouting has implemented stringent policies. Along with other practices, he said they ask for gender information " so that we know from a tenting standpoint and from a bathroom standpoint how to run our programs."

Severing ties with Scouts would have meant banning scouts from meeting on military bases, withdrawing military medical and logistical assistance to the quadrennial Scout Jamboree and eliminating the program that allows Eagle Scouts to enlist at advanced rank and pay.

As reported by NPR, the Pentagon had gone so far as to coordinate with the heads of the different branches on what a separation might mean. The Pentagon circulated a draft notification internally meant for the congressional Armed Services Committees, justifying the withdrawal of military support for the Jamboree. The memo, reviewed by NPR, claimed that providing medical and logistical help to the campout, scheduled for July, would threaten national security.

With this six-month trial period, base access for Scout troops will continue and Jamboree assistance is moving forward for now, including recruitment coordination. As Hegseth pointed out on X, many boy Scouts have become high-ranking military officers, or have served the country in other ways.

"Six Boy Scouts have been elected president of the United States," Hegseth said. "Eleven of the 12 Men to walk on the Moon [were] boy Scouts."

Copyright 2026 NPR

A city commission on Thursday recommended increasing the size of the Los Angeles City Council from 15 to 25, a change long sought after by advocates who said the panel was too small for a city of nearly 4 million people.

The Charter Reform Commission also recommended moving to a ranked-choice voting system for city elections, a method in which voters choose multiple candidates in order of their preference. If no candidate wins a majority of votes, then the last-place finisher is eliminated and their supporters' second choice is counted.

Each of those moves would require changing the city’s charter, the basic set of rules and procedures by which the city operates. And any change to the charter would require voter approval.

The recommendations will go to the City Council, which will decide whether to place the proposals on the June ballot.

Born out of corruption

The commission has been meeting for six months to take input from the public and to consider charter changes. It was created in the wake of the 2022 City Hall tapes scandal, where members of the council were heard on audio discussing how to hold onto power. The conversation was laced with crude and racist remarks, triggering calls for resignation and reforms.

Council President Nury Martinez resigned.

Expanding the size of the council has been suggested as one way to help guard against corruption in local government. Supporters say making the council larger would make it better reflect the diversity of L.A.

The idea is “to have a city council that is bigger, more representative of Los Angeles and gives minorities across the city [power] to elect candidates of choice,” Commissioner Diego Andrades said at the meeting.

Several other major cities have far larger councils. New York, with 8 million people, has a 51-member City Council. Chicago, with 2.7 million residents, has a 50-member council.

The current size of the Los Angeles City Council was established nearly a century ago, when Angelenos approved the 1924 Charter. At the time, each of the 15 council members represented on average a little more than 38,000 residents.

Today, the city has grown to more than 3.9 million residents, with each councilmember now representing on average 265,000 Angelenos, according to Fair Rep LA, an advocacy group.

Increasing the size of the L.A. council to 25 would mean each member would represent 159,000 residents each.

Commissioners debated increasing the size to 29, but voted down that number amid concerns the voters would reject it as too high.

A new way of voting

The committee made several other reform recommendations during a five-hour meeting Thursday evening. The panel recommended that the city change the way it conducts elections, moving to a ranked-choice voting system for city elections starting in 2032.

With ranked-choice voting, if a candidate receives more than half of the first choices, that candidate wins outright — just like in any other election.

But if there is no majority winner after counting the first choices, the race is decided by an instant runoff. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and candidates who ranked that candidate as their first choice will have their votes counted for their second choice. The process continues until one candidate has a majority of the vote.

New York conducts ranked-choice elections.

“The Charter Commission took a big step in empowering Los Angeles voters,” said Michael Feinstein, a former mayor of Santa Monica and a Green Party candidate for secretary of state.

“Ranked-choice voting allows voters to express their preferences over more than one candidate, it gets rid of the spoiler issue and gives voters a much greater voice,” he said. It also saves money because the city is required to conduct one election instead of a primary and runoff elections.

The commission also recommended the city create a chief financial officer position to replace the chief administrative officer position.

City Controller Kenneth Mejia disagreed with the recommendation, saying the CFO role should be placed in his office.

The panel also voted against giving the controller the ability to hire outside counsel and turned down Mejia’s request that the controller be able to conduct audits of all city programs, including those under elected offices.

The commission voted to recommend giving the controller a fixed budget that is a percentage of the general fund. It also agreed to recommend enshrining in the charter the controller’s waste fraud and abuse functions — something that was requested by Mejia.

Earlier this week, the panel approved bifurcating the City Attorney’s Office, creating an anti-corruption office and doubling the charter-mandated amount of funds set aside for the city parks.

A Santa Barbara judge intends to rule against Sable Offshore Corp.’s bid to restart a pipeline that spilled thousands of barrels of crude into the Pacific 11 years ago – dealing a significant blow to the company’s attempt to use the Trump Administration to get around California regulators in its path.

In a tentative ruling, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Donna D. Geck said the Trump administration’s intervention was not enough to undo her earlier order keeping the pipeline shut down. The ruling — a preliminary decision signalling how the judge intends to rule unless persuaded otherwise — comes ahead of a Friday hearing.

The Houston-based startup, which bought the system from ExxonMobil in early 2024, secured an extraordinary intervention from the Trump administration last year to wrest oversight of the pipeline away from the California regulators who were blocking its path.

Sable declined to comment on the tentative ruling. In an earlier statement, Steve Rusch, the company’s vice president of environmental and government affairs, said the project would “offer Californians immediate relief at the pump by making gas more affordable,” and that the company had the experience to operate safely.

The company is facing a criminal prosecution by the local district attorney, a federal securities inquiry, two court injunctions and findings by county officials of a pattern of noncompliance.

Trump steps in to federalize a pipeline 

When state regulators told Sable that the company needed to repair corrosion on the pipeline last fall, the company turned to Washington.

About a month later, Sable asked federal regulators to declare the pipeline “interstate” – a designation that would shift authority from California's Office of the State Fire Marshal to the federal government. The company cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025 declaration of a national energy emergency.

On Dec. 17, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration agreed, ruling that the Las Flores Pipeline — two onshore oil lines running from Santa Barbara County to Kern County — qualifies as an interstate pipeline because it begins on federal offshore platforms and ends at a refinery in Kern County. The agency noted that the pipeline had been federally overseen before 2016. Six days later, the agency issued an emergency permit approving a restart plan. The agency declined to comment.

The maneuver caused immediate conflict. A 2020 federal consent decree stemming from the 2015 spill requires approval from the California State Fire Marshal before the pipeline can restart — a condition that appears to conflict directly with the Trump administration’s move to strip the fire marshal of authority.

Workers prepare an oil containment boom at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, on May 21, 2015, two days after an oil pipeline ruptured, polluting beaches and killing hundreds of birds and marine mammals.

(

Jae C. Hong

/

AP Photo

)

Environmental groups sued the Trump administration in December, saying it was “running roughshod over transparency, environmental review, and pipeline safety requirements.” California filed its own lawsuit in January. Christine Lee, a spokesperson for Attorney General Rob Bonta said the Trump administration’s “illegal actions” contradict the consent decree and attempt to evade state oversight.

Both cases were consolidated earlier this month and are awaiting a ruling in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Justice Department declined to comment.

“It's a real impingement on state authority here that shouldn't stand,” said Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, before the judge’s initial ruling was issued Thursday. “They're trying to basically seize control over these pipelines.”

The first major local test

Geck’s injunction, issued last July, bars Sable from restarting the pipeline until it secures all required state approvals, including those from the fire marshal. The order stems from a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Defense Center, which argued that the fire marshal violated the state Pipeline Safety Act by issuing restart waivers without required environmental review.

On Jan. 5, Sable asked Judge Geck to lift her injunction, arguing that once federal regulators asserted control, the state fire marshal “no longer has any regulatory authority.”

In her tentative ruling, Geck disagreed.

Linda Krop, a staff attorney with the Environmental Defense Center, said the tentative ruling turns on the 2020 consent decree, which binds Sable, federal regulators and the state fire marshal alike.

“It is still binding,” she said.

An exhibitor talks to an attendee at a town hall organized by the Environmental Defense Center and other local organizations.

(

Zin Chiang

/

CalMatters

)

Attendees at the town hall in Santa Barbara on Jan. 17, 2026.

(

Zin Chiang

/

CalMatters

)

At the core of the dispute is corrosion — and how strict the safety bar should be before oil can flow again. State regulators required permanent repairs on any section of pipe showing serious wall thinning, including spots that could be considered unsafe once inspection error is factored in.

In her tentative ruling, Geck sided with the state, finding that the federal action was not enough to override her order.

Sable will have a chance to contest that finding at Friday’s hearing. The company has argued that it had already completed the required repairs and argued that those tougher standards were meant to apply only after the pipeline restarts, not before.

The fight carries significant economic and environmental stakes.

Sable has told investors that production could rise from about 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to more than 50,000, with oil flowing to Los Angeles, Bakersfield and San Francisco refineries. The company told CalMatters this week it could serve 20% of the state’s market, an attractive possibility as California recalibrates its energy strategy to shore up fossil fuel infrastructure even as it pushes toward cleaner power.

But state water officials and the Coastal Commission say the pipeline crosses environmentally sensitive coastal areas, and environmental groups say corrosion risks that caused the 2015 Refugio spill make careful inspection essential.

Sable says it has upgraded monitoring systems and strengthened emergency shutoff protections on the line, plans to inspect the pipeline more frequently than federal rules require, and has response crews positioned for rapid deployment, according to a company spokesperson.

A UC Santa Barbara analysis found the restart would not reduce foreign imports and would raise global greenhouse gas emissions because of the project’s higher carbon intensity.

The remaining roadblocks

Multiple state and federal hurdles still stand between the company and a restart.

A second injunction, issued by Judge Thomas Anderle, also in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, bars work deemed development under state coastal law without a permit from the California Coastal Commission.

That order stems from a separate case over unpermitted work along the Gaviota Coast — conduct state officials have called part of a broader pattern of noncompliance. The commission last year imposed a record $18 million fine, which Sable is disputing.

A new state law, Senate Bill 237, requires oil facilities idle for five years or more to obtain a new coastal development permit. A stretch of the pipeline crosses Gaviota State Park, and state officials say they cannot grant a new easement without completing environmental review.

Oil rigs are visible in the Santa Barbara Channel, as hikers visit the Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve, on Jan. 17, 2026.

(

Zin Chiang

/

CalMatters

)

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors last year denied Sable’s request to assume ExxonMobil’s operating permits, also citing a pattern of noncompliance. County prosecutors have also charged Sable with multiple counts related to alleged unpermitted excavation and dumping during pipeline work in 2024 and early 2025. That criminal case is ongoing.

Sable’s shrinking runway

Even if Sable clears its legal hurdles, time may be its biggest obstacle.

The company disclosed in a recent securities filing that it had $97.7 million in cash and cash equivalents as of the end of last year and will need to spend $25 million to $30 million a month to keep operating this year. It said it plans to seek up to $250 million through stock sales.

The financial pressure is compounded by a weaker oil market than the company anticipated when pitching investors, said Clark Williams-Derry, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Crude prices have remained well below earlier projections, tightening the project’s economics and leaving less margin for delay.

“The company is … burning through cash,” Williams-Derry said. “It is facing much higher costs — and a much slower timetable — than it had envisioned originally.”

Sable has floated a fallback plan to bypass the onshore pipeline and export oil by offshore tanker — a proposal that has drawn fierce opposition in California.

The pipeline fight comes as the Trump administration acts to expand offshore oil leasing along the West Coast – a move that has drawn fierce opposition in California. Geck’s tentative ruling is the first sign that federal efforts to override state authority may face resistance in court.

“If Sable ultimately is not able to build this — or to reopen this pipeline — I think it'll just be confirmation that state and local governments have a say,” said Deborah Sivas, a Stanford environmental law professor. “It'll just reaffirm the Feds can't come in and force things down on states and locals.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.