2 Districts to Reinstate 29 Teaching Positions : Education: Good news for schools is offset by continuing uncertainties over funding, officials say.

With school set to begin this week, Ventura County’s two biggest school districts are restoring a total of 29 teaching positions that had been cut.

But officials in the Simi Valley and Conejo Valley unified school districts are joining educators countywide who say school funding problems are far from over.

There is some good news: The county’s 20 school districts will not have to pay property tax collection fees, estimated at $3 million, because of the revision of a state law. And funding from Proposition 98, which guarantees about 40% of state revenue to public schools, was not cut, as had been proposed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

But there is still a question of how much money schools will get from the state.

A lawsuit by the California School Employees Assn. and other public employee groups, now before the state Court of Appeal, is challenging the legality of the state moving $1.6 billion from the Public Employees Retirement System to help balance the budget. The association represents about 200,000 of the state’s non-teaching school employees.

If the money is shifted back to the retirement fund, however, that could reduce the amount available to schools--and also reduce the 0.75% cost-of-living increase that school officials expect.

“If schools lose that three-quarters of a percent, they’ll actually have less money and won’t be able to maintain the status quo,” said Robert Smith, the county’s assistant superintendent of schools.

Because of the continuing financial uncertainty, however, the county’s districts are sticking to austere budgets based on no funding increase from the state.

School board members in Simi Valley will vote Tuesday on a final budget. Final budgets in some other districts, including Moorpark and Conejo Valley unified school districts, will be approved by mid-September.

As classes begin, the cuts in some districts will be evident: fewer custodians, bigger classes, less money for pencils and paper, fewer high school sports because of cuts in coaching stipends.

“We are starting with real deficiencies in all categories due to the budget cuts,” said Supt. Carolina Erie of the Santa Paula Union High School District. To balance its $5.4-million budget, the district laid off six teachers and a counselor and will not pay stipends to teachers to coach some sports.

The district’s budget for books and supplies was cut by about $64,000, or 61%, and a district computer lab will be closed for one year.

“We’re having to restrict all of our programs and all the types of resources we’d like to make available to teachers and staff to run a quality program,” Erie said. “That’s very unfortunate because the kids do suffer.”

In the Oxnard school district, where 63 employees were laid off and a music program fell victim to budget cuts, “we’re unable to consider any changes,” said Assistant Supt. Sandra Herrera.

“It’s like you’re in a boat that has a lot of leaks in it, and now one of the leaks has been filled,” Herrera said. “Things are better, but you still have leaks all over the place. As soon as we get rid of one problem, another one rears its head.”

Declining lottery proceeds for schools is an ongoing problem, Herrera said. During 1990-91, lottery revenues plunged by $400 million, or about 14%, from the previous year.

“The public’s perception is we’re getting all this money, and we’re not,” Herrera said. “The bottom has dropped out.”

In Thousand Oaks’ Conejo Valley Unified School District, five of 22 teaching positions that had been cut were restored with $185,000 in extra state supplemental grant money, district officials said. Three of those teachers will go to elementary schools and two to secondary schools.

But other reductions in Conejo Valley cannot be restored.

Eight reading specialists were moved into regular classrooms, leaving students at the district’s high schools and intermediate schools without extra help in reading, said Assistant Supt. Sarah Hart.

Coaching stipends, which paid teachers $1,700 to $1,800 a year to coach sports, have been eliminated for freshman and sophomore boys’ soccer, freshman girls’ volleyball, golf and other sports, Hart said. However, a golf booster club is trying to raise money to continue that sport.

Conejo Valley’s budget for computers and science equipment has been cut by 50%, and the supply budget has been cut by 6%, Hart said.

“It doesn’t mean we’re taking anything away,” Hart said. “It just means we won’t be buying more.”

The Simi Valley Unified School District made $8 million in cuts during the 1989-90 school year but was able to balance its budget last school year with lottery funds, officials said. The district is hiring 24 new teachers and a librarian for the coming school year with interest that accrued in an insurance reserve fund.

The new teachers, hired on a semester-to-semester basis depending on enrollment, will put the district back at its 1989-90 staffing level and keep classes at a student-teacher ratio of 32 to 1, said Assistant Supt. Leon Mattingley.

“We’re making it very clear to teachers in their contracts that these are onetime funds,” Mattingley said.

In the Santa Paula Elementary School District, 11 full-time and two part-time teaching jobs and several custodial positions were among the $500,000 in cuts the board approved in July to balance the district’s $13.1-million budget.

One bright spot is the restoration by state officials of statewide funding to the mentor teacher program, which allowed Santa Paula to retain six teachers as mentors, said Assistant Supt. Randall Chase. The mentor teacher program pays extra money to veteran teachers who help develop curriculum and train other teachers.

Reserve insurance money helped the Ventura Unified School District balance its $54-million budget. The school board also approved salary cuts of 1.6% for teachers and administrators, less than the 4% to 8% cuts that had been predicted a few months ago.

And although early estimates predicted layoffs and demotions of up to 100 people in Ventura schools, no permanent employees were laid off, officials said.

However, 28 temporary teachers were not rehired, and 15 teaching positions in grades 6 to 8 will go unfilled this year, resulting in an increased student-teacher ratio of 33 to 1 for those grades, said Assistant Supt. Richard Averett.

Last year, Ventura’s student-teacher ratio at the high school level was 30.5 to 1, and the ratio for grades 6 to 8 ranged from 29.5 students for every teacher to 30.5 to 1, Averett said.

Five maintenance and custodial positions will go unfilled and two temporary bus drivers were not rehired, said Steve Bailey, director of classified personnel.

“We’ve just not hired, and we’re going to see the result of that in dirtier schools, I’m afraid,” Averett said.

* SCHOOL STARTING DATES: B3