The City of Oakland filed a lawsuit on Friday accusing the Oakland Unified School District, or OUSD, of not paying a share of election costs for recent school board elections. The complaint names the district and 10 unnamed individuals as defendants.
The school district hasn't paid any costs for elections since the 2008 general election because of an oversight by the city that wasn't noticed until October 2023. The city then sought reimbursement for the last few elections dating back to 2020.
The school district has outstanding invoices from the city of about $1.5 million, according to the civil complaint filed by Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker.
The city is seeking reimbursement for some of the cost of general elections in 2020 and 2022, as well as a special election in 2023 to fill a vacancy in the school board's District 5 seat.
The complaint alleges that the special election cost about $600,000. It was required, the suit alleges, “only because the OUSD Board of Education declined to appoint a provisional board member and instead chose to proceed by special election."
Election costs are not mentioned in the Oakland City Charter, but the Charter's section 404 refers to the California Education Code section 5227, which says that school districts must pay a proportionate cost of elections in which the district's board of education participates. The proportion is based on how many seats and propositions are otherwise on the ballot.
The city is seeking a court order to force the district to pay the outstanding amount.
