Finance
Santa Barbara Unified School Board Shakes Up Finance Committee Amid Annual Budget Report
As the Santa Barbara Unified school board faces a projected $20 million deficit and declining reserves, trustees voted unanimously Thursday night to change who leads the district’s Finance Committee — removing community member Todd Voigt in favor of future boardmember leadership.
The move — approved in Resolution 2024-25-32A — immediately drew criticism from parents, primarily on the Facebook page S.B. Parent Leadership Action Network (S.B. PLAN), who accused the board of consolidating power just as the district’s fiscal outlook grows increasingly precarious.
“This is a power grab,” said Michele Voigt, wife of Todd Voigt and a San Marcos parent who spoke during public comment. “We are at a point of serious financial concern, and the board is reducing independent oversight.”
Voigt urged the board to view the First Interim Budget Report as more than numbers on a slide. “I’m asking you tonight to look at this first interim not as a technical report, but a test of your governance and your duty to the community you represent,” she said. “Your own projections point to reserves falling below the state minimum and trending toward zero within a few years. And no one will be able to say that they didn’t see it coming.”
Despite Voigt’s comments, the district’s interim financial report told a more nuanced story. The district’s chief business official, Conrad Tedeschi, iterated different figures, figures that were part of the long-term financial plan approved by the board. Overall the numbers were not a surprise, emphasizing that the district is not in crisis and remains above the state-mandated 3 percent minimum reserve level.
According to Tedeschi, there are improved revenue projections and a growing deficit. Total revenue for 2024-25 increased to $244 million, up from the adopted budget, driven by higher-than-expected one-time grants, including a major boost to the Expanded Learning Opportunity Program, which rose from a projected $3 million to $5.2 million after the state updated its formula. However, expenditures also climbed, pushing the projected deficit from $15 million to $20 million. Tedeschi said the increase reflects rising labor costs following the district’s recent wage settlement with teachers. Salaries and benefits now account for 81 percent of all district spending.
Despite the shortfall, Tedeschi emphasized that reserves remain above target: currently at 8.52 percent, compared to the board’s adopted budget of 8.92 percent and well above the state-required 3 percent minimum. Multi-year projections show that with planned reductions, the deficit could shrink to $6.7 million by 2027-28, provided the district makes at least $6 million in cuts over the next two years to maintain a minimum 5 percent reserve. “That’s not a satisfactory level for a basic aid district,” Tedeschi said, “but staying above 5 percent is the minimum needed to keep our budget certified.”
Still, there was ongoing tension over who chairs the Finance Committee — centering on concerns about transparency and legal compliance. The board’s newly passed resolution requires that only elected trustees can serve as committee chair, replacing community member Todd Voigt with a boardmember moving forward.
At the heart of the move is compliance with the Brown Act, California’s open-meeting law that governs transparency in public agencies. Under the law, committees subject to the Brown Act must have properly agendized items for any votes or actions to be legal and binding. Board President William Banning said the Finance Committee had previously taken action on items not properly listed on agendas, potentially violating the law and opening the district to liability.
“These amendments reinforce that commitment [to compliance] and position the Finance Committee to continue its work in a way that is focused, lawful, collaborative, and ultimately highly valuable to the board and the community we serve,” Banning said.
The amended resolution changes Finance Committee bylaws to require that only a boardmember may serve as chair, ending Voigt’s tenure. It also outlines procedures for member removal and reaffirms the committee’s advisory-only role.
“I am the Chair of the Finance Committee, maybe for 15 more minutes,” said Todd Voigt during public comment. “I agreed to serve because I care deeply about this community and its future. I’m a volunteer with no political ambitions. My sole purpose is to provide sound advice and expertise for the benefit of our schools.”
Voigt called the resolution a “serious mistake” and warned that removing the independent chair would erode the very trust the district had been trying to rebuild. “If the board controls both the committee and its leadership, that independence disappears,” he said.
He also made a pointed recommendation to the board. “Should this passage occur … I strongly urge the board to select Boardmember [Celeste] Kafri as the chairperson. She has consistently demonstrated a commitment to addressing the district’s financial challenges,” Voigt said. “By contrast… Boardmember Banning opposed a committee goal I proposed to reduce the deficit. Leadership that does not prioritize deficit reduction is unacceptable.”
Board President William Banning, who was formally elected to the role earlier in the evening, defended the resolution and its timing.
“This is a normal part of building effective governance structures,” he said. “The resolution … strengthens Brown Act compliance … clarifies the committee’s strictly advisory role … and ensures that meetings are presided over by a trustee trained in Open Meeting Law and accountable to the public.”
Banning said that while the original intent was to demonstrate openness by appointing a community chair, it had created confusion around agenda-setting and governance boundaries. “That pattern typically follows the line of … a community member is chair in an attempt to demonstrate openness and shared leadership … and then in early meeting experiences, there is agenda-setting confusion, there’s boundary drift, and difficulties with Brown Act procedures.”
Boardmember Kafri pushed back on parts of the resolution, questioning why the committee chair needed to be replaced at all. “Why is it that we need to replace the committee head … because of a misunderstanding about the Brown Act when most of the committee members have never been on a Brown Act committee before?” she asked. “Could an orientation and a better understanding … prevent future Brown Act violations?”
That prompted clarification from Banning: “It is not only common, but standard practice throughout the state of California … that the committee chair be one of the appointed board representatives.”
Boardmember Gabe Escobedo supported Kafri’s interest in making the committee more effective, but reminded the board to stay focused. “More of what Ms. Kafri is talking about is like the mechanics, and I trust that Mr. Tedeschi will be responsive to the needs of the group and be able to present the information in a way that is going to be digestible,” he said. “What I would hope is that we can focus more on just the mechanics of what’s in the resolution — the words.”
The resolution passed unanimously, but not without raising questions about trust, power, and what transparency means when community expertise is asked to sit down.
As Escobedo noted: “We have the fiduciary responsibility…. It only makes sense to direct the work of the advisory committee to aid us in making those really difficult decisions.”
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.
The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”
The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.
Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.
The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted. Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.
The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.
Finance
Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.
The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.
The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.
Audit contract details
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.
“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.
Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.
“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.
New finance director position
The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.
“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.
Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.
Closed session
The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
The UK’s financial regulator should consider expanding its oversight to cover advanced artificial intelligence models used in financial services, according to a review commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), as policymakers assess whether existing rules can keep pace with rapidly evolving AI technology.
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