1The picture in six numbers
MVWSD is a community-funded (basic-aid) district: local property taxes exceed the state's funding formula entitlement, so the district keeps the excess and gets minimal state aid. That makes it wealthy per student — and unusually exposed to the Silicon Valley property-tax slowdown now underway.
2Revenue: how much comes from property taxes?
$82.3M — 67.2% of all General Fund revenue — comes directly from property taxes (secured + unsecured rolls). Add the Measure AA parcel tax ($5.1M) and redevelopment pass-through ($4.1M) and ~75% of revenue is property-tax-based. All local sources combined are ~89.5%. State and federal money together are only ~14%.
2026-27 revenue mix — $122.4M
Property-tax detail (adopted SACS budget)
| Secured roll (homes & commercial) | $77,767,504 |
| Unsecured roll (business equipment etc.) | $4,300,000 |
| Other roll taxes (supplemental, RDA, homeowner, timber) | $240,398 |
| Property taxes subtotal | $82,307,902 · 67.2% |
| Measure AA parcel tax (~$5.1M/yr, expires 2033) | $5,079,163 |
| Redevelopment pass-through (8097) | $4,057,742 |
| All property-tax-based | $91,444,807 · 74.7% |
| State aid (LCFF + EPA, minimal for basic-aid) | $4,620,057 |
| Other state (ELO-P, lottery, Prop 28…) | $10,606,508 |
| Federal | $2,220,222 |
| Leases & rentals (Google, Shoreline…) | $3,320,638 |
| Interest + other local + SELPA | $10,213,448 |
Lease revenue is falling fast: −52% this year. Google's Slater/Theuerkauf leases ended Feb 2026; Shoreline drops from $7.7M toward $6.3M. This is a second, quieter revenue hole.
Assessed valuation growth is the whole ballgame
The district needs roughly 5% AV growth for revenue to keep pace with costs naturally. The 2026 roll actually grew 1.58%; the budget assumes 1.92%. The assessor reports commercial assessment appeals up 30% in count and 181% in value, and expects 2-3 more slow years.
Why raises are hard: the 1% math
| Fiscal year | Cost of 1% raise | Revenue from 1% AV growth |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | $871,394 | $763,000 |
| 2027-28 | $883,832 | $778,000 |
| 2028-29 | $891,745 | $803,000 |
A 1% raise costs more than 1% AV growth brings in — and regional CPI ran 3.4% for the 12 months ending Aug 2026. Salaries + benefits are $102.9M (79% of spending), so any ongoing raise must be funded by ongoing reductions. The June budget deliberately excludes future raises.
3The deficit and the reserve runway
The adopted budget shows an $8.6M gap in 2026-27 growing to ~$12M in 2027-28 if nothing changes. The board's October framing: a ~$9M structural deficit (to be updated at First Interim), on top of ~$7M already cut last year. Reserves are healthy today but fall toward the board's 17% policy floor by year four without action.
Multi-year projection: revenue vs spending
Reserve level (% of spending)
Ending balances: $51.3M → $39.3M → $29.9M. State minimum is 3%; the board's own policy floor is 17%. Reserves can bridge one-time costs, but cannot fund an ongoing $9-12M gap.
4How much is spent on each school?
The latest published site-level actuals are the 2024-25 School Accountability Report Cards (2023-24 fiscal data). Per-pupil spending ranges from $23,200 (Stevenson) to $27,187 (Castro). Restricted dollars (grants, categorical funds) are a big share — especially at the middle schools and highest-need elementaries. Estimated total site budgets below multiply per-pupil costs by 2023-24 enrollment.
Per-pupil spending by school, 2023-24 actuals
District unrestricted average: $13,520/pupil vs state $11,146. Hover any bar for exact figures.
School-by-school table click headers to sort
| School | Enroll 2017-18 | Enroll Sept 2026 | Change | Per-pupil total | Unrestricted | Restricted | Est. site budget |
|---|
Est. site budget = 2023-24 per-pupil × 2023-24 enrollment (≈$112.2M across 11 sites). It excludes some district-level costs (transportation, district office, debt, transfers), so it is below the $131M General Fund total. Vargas opened in 2019. Enrollment is the Sept 21, 2026 snapshot.
4bCase study: where Bubb Elementary spends its money
Benjamin Bubb Elementary is a useful microscope: a relatively affluent, high-performing school that still carries the district's full cost structure. Figures below are from Bubb's 2024-25 School Accountability Report Card (fiscal data is 2023-24, the latest site-level actuals). The SARC does not publish a line-item site budget, so the total and the teacher-cost line are computed from its per-pupil figure and staffing counts — labeled as estimates.
The per-pupil dollar, split by source
| Unrestricted: $15,598 × 335 pupils | ≈ $5.23M |
| Restricted: $9,208 × 335 pupils | ≈ $3.08M |
| Total estimated site budget | ≈ $8.31M |
Bubb's unrestricted spending is 15% above the district average ($13,520) and 40% above the state average ($11,146). The restricted ~$3.1M is money that must be spent on specific programs — Title I (low-income support), Title III (English learners), special education, and similar grants.
What the money buys: the staffing roster
| Role | Count / FTE |
|---|---|
| Classroom teachers (18 classrooms) | 19.6 FTE |
| Principal (Jane Jung) | 1 |
| Counselor | 1.0 FTE |
| Psychologist | 0.5 FTE |
| Speech / language specialist | 1.0 FTE |
| Library technician (part-time) | 0.88 FTE |
| Community Engagement Facilitator (bilingual, part-time) | part-time |
| At-Risk Intervention Supervisor (ARIS) + noon supervisors | site staff |
| District-provided RTI teachers + reading intervention coach | +3 teachers |
| Nurse | as needed |
| Contracted: art/music (CSMA), PE (Rhythm & Moves) | vendors |
Counts are 2024-25. Note the layering: 18 classroom teachers, then a counselor, psychologist, speech specialist, engagement facilitator, at-risk supervisor, plus three district-provided intervention teachers — the "expanded support" the Orenda study questions.
The biggest single cost: teachers
This is the one line we can compute from published inputs (FTE × average salary). The remaining ~$6M covers other staff salaries and benefits (principal, support staff, aides, office, custodial), supplies and curriculum, the contracted art/music/PE programs, facilities and operations, and allocated district-office services. The SARC does not break those out by school, so they are not estimated here.
The small-school squeeze
Enrollment has fallen 48% since 2017-18 (571 → 297), but the 9.66-acre campus, 26 classrooms, principal and base staffing remain. Fewer children spread the same fixed costs — which is why per-pupil spending stays high. This is the district's $10M "configuration" problem in miniature.
The outcomes paradox: strong overall, big gaps underneath
Bubb's overall results look excellent: 73% meet standards in reading and 71% in math (2024-25), far above the state (48% / 37%). Orenda rates Bubb a relative success — a low-vulnerability school achieving at the high level its community predicts.
But underneath, the same gaps the district struggles with are present: Hispanic students ~23%, English learners ~8-24%, low-income students ~24%, and students with disabilities ~24% meet standards. Bubb is relatively affluent (18% low-income vs 32% district-wide), so these gaps are smaller than at Castro or Mistral — but they show the design problem reaches even a "good" school.
Demographics (2024-25): Asian 31%, White 29%, Hispanic 22%, two-or-more races 16%; English learners 21%, students with disabilities 21%, low-income 18%. Chronic absenteeism 8.2% overall but 21.5% for Hispanic and 23.4% for low-income students. Bubb had 3 principals in 2020-25 (Castro had 6).
How much of this is the "expanded support" the district wants to redesign?
Important caveat: the $8.5M (certificated) and $4.0M (classified) figures are district-wide. MVWSD does not publish a per-school breakdown, and the SARC does not label positions as "expanded." The table below splits Bubb's published support roster into certificated vs classified and flags which roles belong to the post-2017-18 expansion, using the district's own addition timeline (At-Risk + engagement facilitators 2020-21; Early Literacy 2023-24; counselors at every site 2025-26).
| Support role at Bubb | Type | FTE | Part of the expansion? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elementary counselor | Certificated | 1.0 | Yes — added at every site 2025-26 |
| RTI intervention teachers (district-provided) | Certificated | ~2 | Yes — intervention layer |
| Reading intervention teacher / coach | Certificated | ~1 | Yes — Early Literacy / RTI |
| Psychologist | Certificated | 0.5 | No — IEP-required service |
| Speech / language specialist | Certificated | 1.0 | No — IEP-required service |
| Community Engagement Facilitator (SCEF, bilingual) | Classified | part-time | Yes — added 2020-21 |
| At-Risk Intervention Supervisor (ARIS) | Classified | not published | Yes — added 2020-21 |
| Noon / lunch supervisors | Classified | not published | Yes — expanded hours |
| Library technician | Classified | 0.88 | No — baseline |
| Nurse | As needed | minimal | No — baseline |
5Administrators vs teaching staff
From the adopted SACS budget: teachers' salaries are $38.65M; all administrator salaries (certificated + classified) are $7.53M. With benefits pro-rated, teachers cost ~$58.2M and administrators ~$11.3M. Administrators are 5.7% of spending in salary, 8.6% fully loaded — and that is after a 20% cut to district-office administration last year.
Salary cost by staff category
Loaded estimates: STRS benefits assigned to certificated staff, PERS to classified, other benefits pro-rated by salary. Total salaries $69.0M + benefits $33.9M = $102.9M (79% of the General Fund).
Admin & teacher salary share of budget
In 2023-24 MVWSD spent a larger share on admin salaries than the state average (7.46% vs 5.74%). The 2026-27 adopted budget brings it down to ~5.75% — at the state average — while the teacher share (29.5%) matches the state (29.8%). The admin premium has already been squeezed out.
What gets cut when you cut "administration"
- General administration function: $11.31M → $9.01M in 2026-27 (−20.3%).
- Certificated admin salaries: −12.4% year over year ($5.56M).
- Jan 2026 package: $4.08M / 20 district-office positions (15% of DO staff) plus a salary freeze for ~60 admin/confidential/supervisory staff ($507K).
- Rough headcount estimate: ~30 certificated + ~18 classified administrators ≈ 48 admin FTE vs ~350 teacher FTE.
Salary benchmarks vs state average (2023-24)
MVWSD pays 11-44% above state averages — the local cost-of-living premium. Beginning teachers start at $77,834 (state: $61,516); the superintendent earns $349,443 (state avg: $242,781).
Spending by function, 2026-27
"General administration" ($9.0M) is a function — it includes district-office operations, not just admin salaries. Instruction + instruction-related + pupil services = 85% of spending.
6Where can the cuts be made?
Three layers: (a) what's already been cut, (b) the district's own costed menu of choices, and (c) what the evidence says should be redesigned. Then two illustrative packages that reach ~$9M.
Already done: $7.4M package (Jan 29, 2026, for 2026-27)
| District office staffing — 20 positions (15%) | $4,080,000 |
| Custodial services | $939,000 |
| Behavioral technicians (reassignment) | $917,000 |
| Admin salary freeze (~60 staff) | $507,000 |
| K-3 technology | $319,000 |
| Additional anticipated ELO-P funding (offset) | $660,000 |
Preschool, after-school/ELO-P, PE and STEAM programs were not cut. The $7.4M helped but did not close the structural gap — hence the current ~$9M exercise.
The district's costed menu — $25.5M of choices staff estimates, 2027-28
Not a reduction target — the price tag of current choices. Support staffing grew +96.3 FTE (+22.5%) since 2017-18 while enrollment fell −487 (−9.3%): counselors, behavior techs, mental health, OT, noon supervision — added when revenue was booming.
First, a definition: what is "expanded certificated support"?
It is the single biggest item on the cut menu ($8.5M), so it is worth understanding exactly. School staff come in two legal categories, and "expanded support" refers to extra positions the district added in the boom years.
Staff who hold a state credential: classroom teachers, plus counselors, psychologists, nurses, speech therapists, and TOSAs ("teachers on special assignment" — intervention teachers, instructional coaches, literacy specialists). Administrators are certificated too.
Support staff without a teaching credential: instructional aides, behavior technicians, front-office clerks, custodians, noon/lunch supervisors, and many engagement roles.
"Expanded" means the support positions added since 2017-18, when property-tax revenue was growing fast. As money came in, MVWSD hired elementary counselors, reading interventionists, an early-literacy team, mental-health specialists, coaches and more (the district's own timeline: At-Risk + engagement facilitators in 2020-21, the Early Literacy Team in 2023-24, counselors at every site in 2025-26). Now enrollment is down and revenue is flat — but those positions remain. The October presentation prices the ongoing cost at ~$8.5M/yr for expanded certificated support and ~$4.0M/yr for expanded classified support — together $12.5M, the largest block of choices on the menu.
What these roles look like in the budget (2026-27 program lines)
| Example support program | 2026-27 budget |
|---|---|
| RTI Intervention Program (intervention teachers) | $2,542,737 |
| Middle School Counselors | $2,035,565 |
| Early Literacy team | $1,521,887 |
| Engagement Facilitators (TSSP) | $1,403,877 |
| Academic At-Risk support | $1,402,214 |
| Instructional Coaching | $1,175,486 |
| Counseling / Health & Wellness | $951,790 |
These program budgets illustrate the kinds of roles involved; they include materials and some classified staff too, so they are not a precise decomposition of the $8.5M estimate. Why this is the target: Orenda found these pull-out/intervention roles multiplied while student outcomes stayed flat — so the question is not "fire the helpers" but "redesign the help so it works," moving support into classrooms instead of pulling students out.
Where the money is wasted — the Orenda study, in plain English
In December 2025 an outside firm, Orenda Education, visited every school, shadowed students through their day, and interviewed staff. Its blunt conclusion: MVWSD spends heavily on helping struggling students, but the help is built in a way that doesn't work. The district keeps adding staff and programs, yet the students who need the most help keep falling behind. The problem is not how much money is spent — it's how it's spent.
The four ways money gets wasted
What happens: The district gives lots of tests (mainly i-Ready), but they measure easy, surface-level skills — not whether kids actually mastered the grade-level work. When results come back, the usual response is to send a child out of class for extra help, not to change how the whole class is taught.
Why it wastes money: You pay for assessments, data systems and staff time that produce reports nobody can act on. The data never makes teaching better.
Fix: Test the actual grade-level standards, and have teacher teams plan together from the results.
What happens: Struggling students get help by leaving their classroom for separate "intervention" sessions. While they are out, they miss the main lesson — so they fall further behind and need even more pull-out.
Why it wastes money: The district keeps hiring more intervention teachers, but test scores for the neediest students stay flat or drop. More staff, same results.
Fix: Build the help into the regular lesson so kids get support without missing core teaching.
What happens: Years of adding programs without removing any — Orenda calls it a "Christmas tree" decorated until the branches sag. A typical 3rd-grader spends only 51% of the week on core reading & math; the rest goes to STEAM, PE, art, music, intervention and more. Middle schools run 16 different schedules; students lose 108 minutes a week just walking between classes, and a "41-minute" period delivers about 35 minutes of teaching.
Why it wastes money: Every add-on costs staff and time, but together they crowd out the core instruction that actually closes gaps — especially for kids who rely on school for their learning.
Fix: Protect long, uninterrupted core blocks (120 min reading, 60-75 min math), cap the day at 7 periods, and move "extras" outside core time.
What happens: There is no clear 3-5 year strategic plan. District-office roles overlap, so principals get competing directions from several offices at once and spend their time navigating bureaucracy instead of leading teaching.
Why it wastes money: Duplicated jobs and duplicated effort. Without a plan, nobody can say which programs work and which should end — so the "Christmas tree" keeps growing.
Fix: One shared plan with measurable goals, plus a review to merge overlapping roles.
The clearest example: behavior staff
Since 2017-18 the district more than doubled out-of-class behavior support staff (16.5 → 36+ FTE). But office referrals went up, not down. The system is reactive: once there is a dedicated room for sent-out students, teachers send more students out. And those sent out most are Hispanic/Latino — 39% of students but 61% of referrals (up from 52% in 2017-18). The students who most need to stay in class are the ones most removed from it.
A 3rd-grader's week
850 minutes on core reading & math vs 775 minutes on everything else. For a child already behind, barely half the week on grade-level work is not enough to catch up. Equity flag: 15 Hispanic students who scored "exceeds" on the state math test were still denied the advanced math track; appeal approvals ran Asian 100%, White 85%, Hispanic 71%.
Two illustrative paths to ~$9M analyst synthesis — not district proposals
Package A — keep all 11 schools, redesign support
Total: $7.5-11M recurring. Keeps neighborhood schools intact; takes the savings from support-staffing redesign (enrollment + need-based allocation, pre-pandemic noon hours, shared TOSAs, centralized counseling), class balancing/combos, program-contribution efficiency, and post-Orenda role alignment. Risk: requires real operational change, not just cuts; savings at the low end leave a residual gap.
Package B — consolidate 2 elementaries + lighter redesign
Total: $7-9.5M recurring. Two campus consolidations capture most of the $5M configuration premium (district: closing 2 schools ≈ $9M with minimal other cuts). Fewer support-staffing changes needed. Risk: transition costs, transportation, neighborhood impact — and the equity problem above: the smallest schools serve the highest-need students. The board is not currently recommending closures.
Revenue-side levers (cuts alone are half the answer)
- Measure AA renewal before 2033 — protects ~$5.1M/yr (4% of revenue). Start the renewal conversation early.
- Assessed valuation: each 1% = ~$763K. The gap between 1.6% actual and ~5% needed is ~$2.6M/yr of "missing" revenue growth — largely outside district control (appeals, office market).
- Leases: already declining (Google ended Feb 2026; Shoreline $7.7M → $6.3M). Re-leasing vacant space is a partial offset, not a fix.
- Compensation discipline: every 1% raise = $871K ongoing. Fund raises from the reduction package, not reserves.
Decision timeline
The Nov 11 MV Voice article confirms staff are costing packages for Nov 19 and are not recommending school closures at this stage; the focus is the ~$10M configuration cost and support-staffing alignment.
7Sources & methodology
- MV Voice — "Mountain View Whisman considers cost of small schools" (Nov 11, 2026)
- MVWSD 2026-27 Budget Book — revenue/expenditure summaries, multi-year projection, program budgets
- SACS 2026-27 Adopted Budget — exact revenue, salary, benefit and function lines
- "Future Direction and Budget Choices" — Oct 22, 2026 board presentation — costed menu ($25.5M), configuration costs, FTE history, timeline
- 2025-26 First Interim & Budget Reductions presentation (Nov 2025) — assumptions, assessor outlook, illustrative $9M scenarios
- 2025-26 Budget Decisions (Jan 29, 2026) — the $7.4M reduction package
- Enrollment Update (Oct 2026) — Sept 21, 2026 enrollment by school, CALPADS history, demographics
- Orenda Education systems study (Dec 2025) — executive summary, board presentation
- 2024-25 School Accountability Report Cards (all 11 schools) — 2023-24 per-pupil expenditures, salary benchmarks, admin/teacher salary shares
- Measure AA parcel tax · Financial reports · Community partners
Methodology & caveats
- Revenue, salary, benefit and function figures are the adopted 2026-27 SACS budget (exact). Property-tax share = roll taxes ÷ total General Fund revenue; the district's own headline is $82.3M.
- Per-school figures are 2023-24 actuals from the 24-25 SARCs — the latest published site-level data. Estimated site budgets multiply per-pupil cost by 2023-24 enrollment and exclude some centralized costs; treat as ±10% estimates.
- Fully loaded staff costs are estimates: STRS → certificated, PERS → classified, other benefits pro-rated by salary. Admin FTE (~48) and teacher FTE (~350) are estimates from average salaries.
- Configuration costs ($5M + $5M), the $2.5M base campus cost, and the $25.5M menu are district staff estimates for 2027-28, not audited figures.
- The budget excludes future salary increases; the ~$9M structural deficit is the October 2026 framing, to be updated at First Interim. The two cut packages are this analysis's illustrative synthesis of district options — not official proposals.
- Enrollment: Sept 21, 2026 snapshot (K-8 = 4,661); 2017-18 baseline from CALPADS history in the enrollment update.