HUNTINGTON BEACH : Panel Advises Cuts in School Spending

A community advisory committee to the Ocean View School District Board of Trustees has recommended that trustees slash $820,000 in spending from the 1991-92 budget to avoid dipping into the district’s reserve account.

District staff officials have proposed that the trustees use the reserve account to help cover an estimated $500,000 budget shortfall and some capital and operational costs for the next school year.

But in a report prepared by the Community Budget Advisory Committee--a panel composed of 10 parents and other community representatives, a non-teaching employee and a school principal--members recommend that the board spend only accrued interest from the special-reserve fund. The committee advised that that income, expected to total $560,000 next year, should be spent only on building and maintenance projects that would not recur within five years.

The $7.1-million reserve fund balance “already is insufficient to properly fund the legitimate long-term needs” for capital and maintenance projects, says the report, which was presented to the trustees at their meeting this week. “Any further reductions in the principal,” that is, the reserve funds, “would require that more of the costs be subsidized by general funds, or would require that more property be sold.”

The board is scheduled next month to begin a series of study sessions and public hearings on the 1991-92 budget before it approves a final plan in September.