Carlsbad Unified approves budget at special meeting with board president absent

Local parents say Kathy Rallings has been controversial for how she treats other board members during meetings and her suggestion to take more than $3 million out of the district reserve funds.

CARLSBAD, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) — The Carlsbad Unified school board held a special meeting Wednesday to approve the district budget, but the board president was absent.

Local parents say Kathy Rallings has been controversial for how she treats other board members during meetings and her suggestion to take more than $3 million out of the district reserve funds.

Ahead of that special meeting, a rally was held calling for accountability and for Rallings to be removed as board president.

“I was shocked at the tone of the meetings, the bullying, the incivility in those meetings by the board president,” said Teressa Wallace.

“Everybody can disagree, but the decorum needs to matter. This is a professional setting,” said Jeff Adams.

Beyond behavior, concerns have been raised about Rallings’ suggestion to move more than $3 million out of the district’s reserve funds with no specific way to spend the money.

Members of the public and the board disagreed, citing uncertainty at the state and federal level for education funding.

“Staff has recommended that we keep the reserves in place until we know what the budget is going to look like and that’s one of the main issues why we don’t want this $3 million transferred out of the reserves. We want to keep that to make sure we can keep our teachers and maybe hire a couple more if we have the room to do that,” explained Scott Davison, Executive Director for the Carlsbad Education Alliance.

With disagreement over the budget, the special meeting was scheduled, but Rallings did not show up.

She did provide a statement that reads in part:

“I have consistently advocated for these dollars to be invested in our students and classrooms, rather than sitting unused in an account for over a decade. It is difficult to justify the existence of a $3.1 million reserve when we are telling parents and teachers, they need to buy basic classroom materials like tissue paper and glue sticks, or when the district staff claims, they can’t afford to reduce class sizes or counselor caseloads.”

Ultimately all four board members present voted unanimously to pass the budget without withdrawing the money Rallings requested.