HUNTINGTON BEACH : Ocean View District Sees Fiscal Shortfall

The Ocean View School District projects an $877,000 budget shortfall next fiscal year, officials said.

District officials in the coming weeks will draft proposals to increase revenue and cut spending, said Jon Spang, Ocean View’s director of fiscal services.

The deficit expected in the district’s estimated $38-million budget for 1992-93 is caused by a drop in statewide education funding coupled with new costs to the district next year to implement its sweeping school reorganization plan.

Ocean View this fall will close Crest View and Haven View schools, convert four schools into middle schools for sixth- through eighth-graders, and change its remaining 11 schools to kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary schools.

The plan, which the board approved last year, seeks to maximize educational programs and services by concentrating teachers and equipment in fewer schools. The reorganization also includes elements to help stem racial segregation.

New school buses, portable classrooms and other expenditures for the new plan will cost the district $665,356 in 1992-93, Spang said. The district will save $508,000 by closing Crest View and Haven View, however, so the net drain on the budget will be $157,356, he estimated.

The rest of the deficit is caused by state funding failing to keep pace with schools’ operational costs, as is the case for all California school districts.

“With the condition of the economy the way it is, it’s in the district’s best interest to be very prudent in its fiscal planning,” Spang said. Ocean View’s financial dilemma “is a problem, but certainly not approaching a crisis,” he added.

The trustees are scheduled to hold a study session on next year’s budget on March 24 when they will discuss initial proposals for bridging the spending gap.