Schools Face New Expense : Camarillo: Pleasant Valley School District administrators, already frustrated over a budget pinch, must now pay for the removal of old paint.

The Pleasant Valley School District, already facing a possible budget deficit of $253,000 this year, must now pay up to $3,275 for a hazardous waste removal company to haul away some cans of old paint and solvent, district officials said Friday.

The expenditure, which will be covered by one of the district’s reserve funds, has surprised administrators already frustrated over the pinch of a tight budget.

“We understand the need to comply with state law, and protection of staff and students is of the utmost importance to us, but we are understaffed and under-equipped,” Associate Supt. Howard Hamilton said.

“This is very frustrating for us. We could use that money on tools, equipment, maintenance, our school buses,” Hamilton said. “We have one groundsman to cover 250 acres of property. We can’t keep up because we don’t have the money.”

The chemicals were rounded up from various school sites after a reorganization last summer of the maintenance and operations department. Some of the materials are classified by state law as hazardous waste because their content cannot be positively identified, Maintenance Director Tom Goins said.

“We primarily have paints and solvents, some sewer-pipe opener and a couple of old ant-repellent spray cans. It’s just small amounts of each, a pint here, a gallon there. Altogether, it would fill up about half of a pickup truck,” Goins said.

“Nowadays, though, you can’t just throw things in the dump anymore, like we used to. I know the state guidelines are designed to protect the community, but this is difficult on our finances,” he said.

State law requires that the school district remove hazardous-waste materials from the premises no later than 90 days after they are found, said Loren Couplin, director of purchasing.

BD Technology of Arcadia supplied officials with a quote of $3,275 to identify, package and transport the waste for incineration out-of-state, he said.

At its meeting Thursday, the Pleasant Valley Board of Education approved spending no more than that amount for disposal of the chemicals, just moments after receiving a gloomy, updated budget report from Jan Maez, director of budget and fiscal services.

“We could be facing a $253,000 reduction in our ending balance because of an anticipated reduction in lottery funds of $90,000 and the county’s $163,000 property tax assessment on the district,” Maez said.

The district may be able to save some money by taking paints that are identified as nontoxic to the Bailard landfill in Oxnard, which accepts oil- or water-based paints for recycling at no charge, Couplin said.

“If we could take some of the paints to the landfill, it would bring the price down tremendously,” he said.

District officials said they don’t expect this problem to come up again.

“This was not anticipated, but it’s probably a one-shot deal,” Maez said. “In the future, if we have a waste problem, it will not be of this magnitude. It will be something we’ll know to allow for.”