Budget Slashed an Additional $730,000 for Peninsula Schools

Palos Verdes Peninsula school board members Wednesday slashed an additional $730,000 from this year’s budget and delayed scheduled public hearings on an environmental impact report on districtwide school closures.

No date has been set for the hearings.

The budget cuts came on top of $1.7 million in reductions board members had made earlier. Although classroom programs have not been affected, cuts have included the elimination of a number of custodial, groundskeeper and clerk jobs. The operating budget now totals $31.5 million, district spokeswoman Nancy Mahr said.

Also, three administrative positions that became vacant through attrition will be left unfilled, and a hiring freeze has been implemented.

The cuts made Wednesday night included canceling the contract the district had with the Los Angeles County Office of Education to provide instructional movies, cutting the travel budget, and reducing budgets for student supplies such as paper and pencils.

“I just think it means fewer services for students, I really, really believe that,” school board President Jack Bagdasar said Thursday. “A lot of the cuts that have been made are indirectly going to infringe on the instructional programs of kids.”

The cuts were necessitated by shortfalls in the amount of money the district expected to receive from the state. Enrollment in the district has declined in recent years.

To balance the budget, board members dipped into the the district’s reserves for $700,000, Mahr said. The district’s reserve now stands at 2.26% of its operating budget. The county’s Office of Education recommends a 3% reserve.

Board members also voted to delay three public hearings to receive public comment on the court-ordered environmental impact report that stems from district efforts to close Miraleste High School. The board wanted to give district administrators more time to respond to dozens of written comments received about the report since it was made public in June.

Many of the comments were critical, contending that the report failed to adequately analyze the potential environmental and other disruptions that could result from closing the high school on the peninsula’s east side.

The district was ordered to prepare the report by a Superior Court judge after a group of parents challenged the board’s decision in 1987 to close Miraleste as a cost-saving measure and because of declining enrollment.

The first public hearing was to have been held Sept. 25. That hearing will probably be held in November, Bagdasar said.