Conejo Schools Facing Deep Cuts in ‘91-92 Budget

The Conejo Valley Unified School District, facing a $6.4-million budget shortfall next school year, has proposed deep across-the-board cuts that would eliminate up to 130 jobs, officials said Monday.

Under the district’s proposal, which will be heard by the school board Thursday, nearly 9% of the district’s 1,500 employees would be laid off.

Employees who would lose their jobs include five administrators, 22 teachers and at least 61 janitors, clerks and other types of non-teaching employees, the district said.

In addition, stipends for 15 high school coaches would be eliminated.

Officials with the 17,000-student school district, the county’s second largest, said they will be forced to cut $3.6 million from a $70.7-million proposed budget, or 5.2%, because state support is expected to be reduced dramatically. More cuts would have been necessary if the district had not carried over $2.8 million in reserves.

“It’s not a Conejo problem, it’s a statewide problem,” said Richard Simpson, assistant superintendent of the district. “Without this kind of a cut, we couldn’t sleep at night. We’re not going to go into the new school year risking bankruptcy.”

The Conejo proposal follows last week’s announcement by Ventura Unified School District that it would have to reduce its $57-million budget for 1991-92 by $3.2 million, or 5.5%.

The cuts are based on a worst-case scenario, and laid-off employees could be reinstated if conditions improve as the Legislature deals with the state’s financial crisis, officials said.

The reductions assume that the district will receive no cost-of-living increase from the state, that lottery funds will remain at depressed levels and that fees the county has levied on school districts for property tax collection will remain. Nor is enrollment--which has declined in recent years and on which state payments to schools are based--expected to rebound.

The district’s entire four-person curriculum department would be cut and the job assumed by other administrators, as was the case until the mid-1980s, Simpson said.

Curriculum Director Dorothy G. Maloney would lose her $95,000-a-year job after 27 years with the Conejo district.

“My first thought was to retire, but I’ve got too much to offer education to retire now,” said Maloney, 57. “It’s a shock.”

Under the proposal, 11% of the district’s non-teaching staff, 11% of administrators and 3% of teachers would be laid off.

“I’m not completely satisfied with the recommendations,” school board member Dorothy Beaubien said. Her alternative proposals will be presented during the board meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Westlake High School. A vote on the plan is scheduled for May 9.

Each of the district’s 18 elementary schools would lose a part-time custodian under the cuts, leaving just one full-time janitor per school, said Stan McClain, president of the California School Employees Assn., the classified employees’ union. Five other full-time janitors would also be cut.

The 22 teachers facing layoffs are those with the least seniority, officials said. Union representatives estimated that class size would increase and some secondary-school electives would be dropped.

“Our position is to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible,” said John Uelmen, president of the United Assn. of Conejo Teachers. “Everybody is taking their lumps.”

PROPOSED CUTS

The Conejo Valley Unified School District faces a $3.9-million deficit in its $70.7-million 1991-92 budget. These cuts are proposed to balance it:

AREA POSITIONS CUT AMOUNT CUT Administrative 5 $295,000 District office staff 7 222,500 Counselors 3 150,000 Psychologists 2 141,250 Teachers 22 831,040 Part-time custodians 18 210,650 Other classified 22 675,700 Coaches 15 38,000 Supplies 539,000 Program adjustments 265,800 Lottery-financed programs 226,635 Surplus carried over from 1990-91 300,000 TOTAL 3,895,575

Source: Conejo Valley Unified School District