Educators Hopeful, Yet Wary, Over State Budget : Funding: School district officials, who had planned on a 3% increase in state allocations, wait to see if Deukmejian will approve a planned 4.76% hike.

Ventura County school officials expressed cautious relief Monday that the tentative new state budget provides a lot more for education than many districts had expected.

But officials said they would reserve a final opinion on how local school districts will fare until the budget is signed by Gov. George Deukmejian, possibly today.

“We’re still waiting to see what the total package is,” said Sarah Hart, assistant superintendent for business services in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. “We would have to see what happens with other areas of the budget to see if it would be a net gain or loss for us.”

Stan Mantooth, director of facilities and business operations at the Oak Park Unified School District called the budget’s 4.76% cost-of-living increase “very encouraging, although we don’t actually have a firm budget yet.”

Mantooth said Oak Park, like many other Ventura County districts, had based its tentative budget on a 3% increase “because that was the preliminary number we heard as far back as January.” The deadline for approving local school district budgets was June 30, and many districts planned for only a 3% increase in state aid.

If the final increase is indeed 4.76%, some school officials said, they may be able to put back items that had been deleted in the tentative budget, including some jobs and maintenance work.

But Ken Prosser, director for school business and advisory services for the county Superintendent of Schools, said Deukmejian “still has the opportunity to delete funding for certain areas. . . . The governor can still change things.”

Although officials said they hope the 4.76% increase will apply to all educational programs that receive annual cost-of-living boosts, the governor may decide to give lesser increases--or none at all--to certain programs, including special education, counseling and drivers’ training.

To get a better sense of how Ventura County schools will fare, Prosser and other school officials said they will attend one of three budget workshops next Monday during the annual conference of School Services of California Inc., a private educational consulting firm based in Sacramento.

“That’s where we really find out the nuts and bolts,” Prosser said. “Right now, the state budget is one big giant package, and in order to understand it, you have to read the whole package. School Services does that . . . and breaks down for just schools and how the budget affects school districts.”

The governor’s office is also expected to send out a more detailed explanation of the budget shortly after it is signed, Prosser said.

The fact that the schools emerged from the prolonged budget battle with about 42% of the state general fund is considered a coup in Sacramento.

At the state level, Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, teachers and education advocates apparently paved the way for success more than two years ago when they worked to pass Proposition 98, the voter initiative which guarantees 42% of general state tax funds for public schools and community colleges.

Deukmejian has said schools will receive all funding guaranteed under Proposition 98.

In Ventura County, several districts also banded together earlier this year to fight for their share of budget funding.

In late May, a group of Ventura County school districts formed a coalition to urge legislators and Deukmejian to provide the full cost-of-living increase called for under state law.

Representatives from Conejo Valley, Moorpark, Oak Park and Simi Valley were joined by the Las Virgenes School District in Los Angeles County to form the Suburban Schools State Budget Coalition of Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.

In a letter addressed to Deukmejian and other politicians in May, the coalition said they feared that a 3% rather than a 4.76% increase would force them to cut some programs, including job training and funding for extracurricular activities.

Some district officials had also feared that a lower-than-expected cost-of-living increase would force layoffs.

“We’ll have a fairly good picture about a week from now,” Prosser said. “Until then, we’re kind of up in the air.”