Cutbacks in Simi School Budget OKd

Faced with the threat of insolvency, Simi Valley school trustees have approved a plan to cut $5.4 million during the next three years, while Moorpark school leaders are debating how to pare a projected $1-million deficit.

Both school districts have been warned by Ventura County school officials to curb spending or risk losing local control of their finances.

In August, county school officials sent letters to six school districts--including Simi Valley Unified and Moorpark Unified--asking administrators to show how they plan to reduce deficits.

“What we are trying to do is establish an early warning system,” said Robert Smith, county assistant superintendent of business services. “If you continue a high level of deficit spending, there could be potential insolvency.”

Simi Valley Unified was the only school district asked to submit a spending-reduction plan by Dec. 31, Smith said.

In response to that request, the Simi Valley school board approved a plan Tuesday night that will cut about $5.4 million by the 1996-97 school year, taking a large chunk out of a projected $5.9-million deficit for the next two years.

“We are not financially solvent for 1996-97 right now,” said Wayne Templeton, the district’s chief financial analyst. “What the county is telling us is, ‘Show how you will be.’ ”

Under the proposal, the district will reduce payments to its self-funded employee health plan by $500,000 each year, for a projected savings of $1.5 million over the next three years.

The district will also cut contributions to its workers’ compensation fund by half a percent each year for an overall savings of $870,000.

The sale of surplus real estate will provide $240,000 this year, and recently imposed bus fees will generate about $200,000 each school year, adding more than $600,000 to the cash-strapped general fund during the next three years.

“The whole exercise is for the district to show the county superintendent how it will resolve its problem,” Templeton said. “All we have to do to make sure we don’t have a deficit in two years is follow (the plan).”

Simi Valley Unified is the largest district in the county, with more than 18,000 students, and trustees have struggled in recent years to balance its $75-million budget.

The board already trimmed $2.5-million to balance the budget for this school year, in part by eliminating 24 teaching positions and imposing a $200-a-year student busing fee.

Meanwhile, the Moorpark Unified School District, saddled with paying the remainder of a bill for an elementary school and for partial construction of a stadium, is facing a potential $1-million deficit this year and similar deficits for the next three years.

The district still has three more $700,000 payments for the $3.5-million Mountain Meadows Elementary School, which was built seven years ago. The district also owes about $120,000 for bleachers built at the new high school stadium complex.

When Mountain Meadows Elementary School was built, the district was reaping the benefits of rapid growth in the city, collecting fees from each city building permit.

But in the last four years, Moorpark has had very few new developments, and school board members predict that they will not get any money from new construction this year.

“Previous boards planned on getting developers’ fees every year,” said board member Tom Baldwin. “But I don’t think new development is going to save our bacon this year.”

The district already has taken some cost-cutting measures and frozen spending of its $500,000 lottery fund. But school board members said that much more will need to be done to eliminate the projected deficit in their $23-million budget.

Supt. Tom Duffy is drafting a list of cost-cutting measures, such as increasing class size, charging for school busing and cutting some staff positions. But those measures will only be considered as a last resort, trustee Clint Harper said.

Instead, district officials hope to sell property, including 10 acres near City Hall that once housed the old high school and a two-acre site near Peach Hill School. Together the sale of that property could generate more than $2 million.

But even then, Harper said, the budget woes are not likely to go away.

“The more endemic problem is that as the cost of running a district continues to increase, the state doesn’t increase our funding,” he said. “And since Prop. 13, it’s the state and not local property taxes that we have to depend on.”