Ventura College Faces New Round of Cuts : Education: The school learns its fiscal plans were off by $150,000. A tight budget makes the shortfall particularly painful.

Already reeling from budget cutbacks, officials at Ventura College have discovered that they have miscalculated their spending on salaries and other costs and must cut expenses by about $150,000 or face a budget deficit by the end of the fiscal year.

Officials say they are trying to figure out how they will get back in line with their $22.9-million budget. The problems, officials said, were caused mostly by difficulties in projecting the cost of faculty salaries.

“We don’t see it as a disaster,” said Steve Tobias, president of the faculty senate. “We see it as a disappointment. We’re just going to have to put our dreams on hold and limp through this year. If you see a dollar on the sidewalk, send it here.”

The shortfall is only 0.6% of the college’s total budget, but is especially painful because the fund for such emergencies has nearly dried up, Tobias said. The college, which suffered a $148,000 budget reduction this year, has already been cut to the bone, officials said.

College officials insist that the cuts will not affect the spring class schedule, which is already slated to be reduced by 35 classes. The same number of classes has already been cut for the fall semester because of earlier budget problems.

“We’re not going to take a meat cleaver” to the spring class schedule, said Ray DiGuilio, acting vice president for administrative services. Also, he said, no layoffs are planned.

But the shortfall, officials said, must be made up for in other areas. Positions will go unfilled and some supplies will not be purchased.

“We will be providing fewer services,” said Lyn MacConnaire, vice president of instruction. “We’re looking at a lot of things: student services, support services. We are going to have to change how we do our printed schedule.”

According to DiGuilio, it is not unusual for the college to miss the mark slightly in its budget projections. Several years ago, the college’s budget projection was off by $400,000, which was made up by shifting money from one area to another.

With the changing dynamics of the college, it is difficult to know exactly what the budget will be.

“Our estimations are never really accurate,” Tobias said.

He said officials learned of the projected shortfall last month, after the final cost projections for the fall semester came in.

“We just sighed and said, ‘Oh boy,’ ” Tobias said. He said officials should know by next week exactly how they will deal with the dilemma.

“We’ve quit looking in the wallet for bills,” Tobias said. “Now we’re looking for nickels and dimes.”

Officials at Moorpark and Oxnard colleges said their budgets are also slim, but they are not facing the kind of shortfall confronting Ventura College officials.

“There is no massive blood in the streets,” said Lynn Fauth, president of Oxnard College’s faculty senate.

Roger Boedecker, acting president of Moorpark College, said: “Although our budget is tight, we were not confronted with any unexpected problems.”

The overall budget for the Ventura County Community College District is about $65.6 million for fiscal year 1991-92, which began in July.

Although the budget is up about $2 million from last year, an increase in overall expenses has forced the colleges to provide fewer services.

This year, all three colleges cut classes and left positions unfilled. At one point, officials considered doing away with the athletic program at Oxnard College. But that plan was ruled out.

In the end, the budgets increased slightly at Moorpark and Oxnard colleges over last year. But at Ventura College, the allotted funds went down--mostly because of dips in enrollment.

“It’s disheartening to have to go back and do what we did as a campus last year,” Tobias said.

Despite the latest financial problems at Ventura College, Tobias said he is confident that the budget will be balanced.

But he added: “We’ll be bleeding a lot.”