Larry Wilson: Pasadena Unified finds it has to live within its means

You don’t cut the budget of any organization, from your family’s spending to that of a billion-dollar business, by 16% without causing real pain.

That’s not a matter of ferreting out your standard waste, fraud and abuse. That’s cutting to the bone, and then cutting into it.

But that’s the kind of cut the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Trustees made last week when it voted 4-3 to slash about $30.5 million from the district’s $189 million general fund spending for the next school year.

It wasn’t unexpected. The board has been monitored by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, whose members often sit in on meetings tut-tutting about the PUSD, for months now. Without making cuts, the district was in line for a takeover.

And it was all the board’s own fault, as board member