The Los Angeles Unified School District is on a financial cliff.

In a John Fleischman California Post piece, the district has ignored years of warnings about declining enrollment, rising labor costs and unsustainable spending. It points to recent findings by the Los Angeles County Office of Education that the district shows “severe” signs of insolvency and could be on the verge of a $231 million deficit — and unable to make payroll — as early as November 2027.

Fleischman says district leaders approved costly labor agreements despite shrinking enrollment.

Those contracts added $1.1 billion in costs this school year, growing to $1.4 billion next year. They include a 24 percent pay increase for union support staff, nearly 14 percent over two years for teachers and almost 12 percent over two years for administrators — without any spending cuts.

The Post reports the school board overruled its own chief financial officer and transferred $175 million from a retiree health trust fund to balance the budget on paper.

There was no academic turnaround to justify this. Less than half the district’s students meet state standards in English, only 37 percent meet standards in math and just 27 percent meet standards in science.

This comes as Libs of TikTok reports LAUSD is offering free education services to children who are in the country illegally, including outdoor camps, while legal resident parents pay $300 per child, per year, for those camps.

Listen to Jon Fleischman’s So Does It Matter podcast here.