Petaluma Public Schools: Dashboard

Finances

★ Property taxes grew from 32% of revenue share in 2000 to 48% by 2025.

★ Pupil services and administration grew from 14% of spending in 2003 to 20% in 2025.

Accrual basis, both districts.

★ A year's result rolls into the district's fund balance: surpluses build reserves that carry forward, deficits spend them down. Districts must keep a minimum reserve (~3% of spending).

★ Sustained deficits appear twice: the recession years (FY2009 to FY2013) and the current stretch (FY2024 to FY2025) as one-time funds rolled off.

Total expense ÷ census-day enrollment. Accrual basis (includes pension accruals, depreciation, one-time grant spending). Real per-student spending was roughly flat 2000–2015, then rose ~33% to an all-time high of $19,627.

Special report: 2026 budget cut

On February 10, 2026 the school board unanimously approved $6.1 million in reductions for 2026–27 (about 4% of spending). The proximate cause is visible in the charts above: $15–20 million a year of temporary money (COVID relief, one-time state grants, an expiring parcel tax) entered the budget between 2020 and 2023, while enrollment fell and state unrestricted aid dropped $5 million in FY2025 alone.

The cut is not spread evenly. Mapping the board's line items onto the spending functions above: pupil services and administration absorb most of it (which were the same two functions that grew fastest since 2020).

FY2019–FY2025 audited, nominal dollars. Hatched bars are estimates: FY2026ᵉ carries FY2025 forward at the district's budgeted +1.2% growth; FY2027ᵉ subtracts the adopted $6.1M, allocated by function (pupil services −$2.3M, instruction −$1.6M, administration −$1.1M, plant −$0.6M, instruction support −$0.5M), before step increases and other changes. FY2026 has no audited actuals yet — the year is still in progress.

District spending by function: before and after the cut

Of the ~60 positions, 44 FTE are certificated (teachers, counselors, psychologists, nurse) and 16+ classified (custodians, clerical, coordinators).

Breakdown of the adopted cuts: $6.1M total

Enrollment

By school, tracked by CDS code across renames.

★ Combined enrollment peaked at 8,177 in 2003–04 and is down to 7,473 in 2025–26. The decline is concentrated in the high school district (5,952 → 4,903 from its 2004 peak).

Grade bands sum both districts (junior highs are High-district). Recent TK expansion (universal transitional kindergarten) props up the youngest band.

Enrolled students per 1,000 Petaluma city residents (left axis), against total city population (right axis, shaded). The dashed marker is 2022–23, when California's universal transitional kindergarten expansion began adding 4-year-olds to enrollment.

★ Petaluma's total population peaked in 2018, declined to a 2023 low, and has grown again over the past two years.

Shares of city residents aged 5–17 (decennial census and ACS 5-year estimates; observed years only, no interpolation). Local private schools include CDE Private School Affidavits: St. Vincent elementary & college prep, Harvest Christian, Spring Hill, Cypress. The residual few percent: small-affidavit homeschools (excluded from CDE files by law), private schools outside town, and 5-year-olds not yet in kindergarten.

★ The recent jump in the enrollment rate is attributed mostly to TK.