$15,000 a month to work 1-2 days a week

Contreras did not respond to requests for an interview. Nor did trustees Olivia Flores, Misty Navarro, Jessica Carrasco, Carol Turley or Daniel Dodge Jr., who voted to approve the contract. District spokesperson Alejandro Chavez responded to a detailed list of questions from Santa Cruz Local on Thursday.

“Bill McGuire’s consulting services focus on facilities planning, Measure M bond implementation support, project coordination, and related capital planning initiatives,” Chavez wrote. “His role is entirely advisory, intended to assist the District in managing highly complex, multi-million-dollar capital facilities projects.”

The contract for McGuire’s services is a brief, two-page document. It describes the scope of work as monitoring project budgets, detailing revenue sources, training facilities staff and facilitating “best practices in project delivery methods and consultant contracts.” 

The one deliverable listed in the contract is “Regularly scheduled meetings in person and by Zoom — starting twice a week during the initial phase of the contract, arranged at a mutually beneficial time for the parties.” There are no required progress reports cited in the contract.

Superintendent Heather Contreras brought in a consultant that costs $15,000 a month. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local file)

By contrast, several other PVUSD consultant contracts reviewed by Santa Cruz Local were more than a dozen pages long with an itemized services agreement. Like a $35,000 contract with MGT Impact Solutions from April 2025 to do a boundary planning study — it was 16 pages long and detailed precisely the work to be done.

A lack of public records makes it difficult to verify the exact work McGuire has completed for PVUSD in the past year. 

McGuire’s name does not appear in records included in board agendas like budget documents, facilities reports or other documents related to Measure M facilities planning. The only place his name appears consistently is on the purchase orders and check registers, where records show he’s been paid $154,715 so far. 

“I’m facilitating and working as the project manager for the bond fund, and working with all of the individuals within the facilities department, within the business services department, to make sure that we’re utilizing the bond funds in the best way possible and helping coaching the team, who’s fairly new at this work,” McGuire said.

At the June 2025 board meeting, Contreras said McGuire would be working one to two days a week. The contract requires a minimum of 500 hours of work, which would equal $400 an hour in pay. 

“Some weeks I can work 25 hours a week, and some weeks I may only work 10 on average,” McGuire said on Friday.

McGuire’s work at PVUSD 

McGuire has remotely attended Measure M citizens oversight committee meetings, a group tasked with oversight for how the bond money is used. Five meetings have occurred since July 2025. 

Lourdes Barraza, a district parent who serves on the committee, said she was surprised to hear how much money the district is paying him.

“I’m very disappointed that we’re spending that much money on a consultant when I don’t really feel like he’s been helpful in the meetings. I don’t feel like he’s contributed so much,” she said.

Perhaps where McGuire has been the most publicly visible and engaged is at the Sustainable Schools Advisory meetings — a committee of district parents, staff, residents and union leaders convened in April 2026 to come up with a plan for which schools in the district to close amid an ongoing budget crisis. 

McGuire facilitated the May 28 meeting, which centered around a proposal from district administrators to relocate students from Renaissance High School to a preschool for disabled children, and move those children to other schools. 

That plan would have seen the schools close this summer, but amid strident backlash from parents and teachers, the board rejected the plan and directed administrators to have the proposal instead go through the committee process. 

Renaissance High School is a continuation school for students who need to make up credits to graduate. (Nik Altenberg — Santa Cruz Local)

McGuire said he made a site capacity study for the May committee meeting that analyzed enrollment in the districts’ schools. Near the end of the tense, two-hour meeting, he pointed to low enrollment at Renaissance as a reason to consider relocating students.

“There’s going to be program relocation,” he said at the meeting. “ If we can’t do Renaissance, we can’t do anything, I’m just telling you right now,” adding that the school “has 50 kids.” Renaissance High had 92 students in the school year that just ended, according to a district staff report, and dozens of seniors just graduated.

Mads Realmuto is a district parent and a member of the advisory committee. At the May meeting, he said he felt like “we’re being steered in a direction rather than us steering the direction.”

When reached by phone on Thursday, Realmuto was shocked to learn how much McGuire was being paid by the district. 

“We’re sitting here trying to figure out how to make this district work and then we’re spending money like this — I don’t want to make this about one individual, the real issue is judgment and process,” Realmuto said. “When we’re talking about something painful and consequential like school closures, the school district should be doing everything it can to build trust in the process.”

In reference to the steep cost of McGuire’s contract, he said, “I think the board needs to be willing to ask harder questions before decisions are made, not after.”

Board trustee Medina echoed the sentiment. 

“It’s so important that when we get these proposals put in front of us, that we vet them properly, we can’t just take the district’s word,” Medina said on Friday. “We need to ask questions.”

This is the first of a multi-part series. Look for part two next week.

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