OXNARD : Preliminary Budget for Schools Approved

The Oxnard Elementary School District adopted a preliminary $86.5-million budget Wednesday night that spares the schools from further cuts but does not restore popular music classes and special reading programs.

“We are basically treading water,” said Sandra Herrera, assistant superintendent in charge of finance. “All of the services and additional support we could have cut was cut in the 1991-92 budget.”

The system is operating with the “bare essentials,” school board member Mary Barreto said. There are no music or art classes, and the school system has only a single nurse, she said.

In the previous two years, the district had eliminated 67 positions, and last year it made $600,000 in cuts. This year’s budget is based on a “worst-case scenario” of state funding, Herrera said.

But Herrera said the school’s budget could change because it is contingent on the amount of dollars that come from the state. “Essentially, this budget is like saying you will spend $2,000 on a vacation before you go to the travel agent and find out what it costs,” Barreto said. “We have to bring it back when we hear from Sacramento.”

Herrera said the only bright spot in next year’s budget is that Oxnard administrators project a 2.5% growth in enrollment. Because the state budgets money to the district based on the number of students, a higher enrollment allows the district to hire nine more teachers.

“That is good, but soon we will have more children than facilities to accommodate them,” Herrera said. “Our only hope is that (state funding) is not even worse than we anticipate.”