Moorpark District May Finish Year in Red

With their school district already on a county watch list for dipping too deeply into financial reserves, Moorpark’s school trustees approved a budget update Tuesday night that predicts ending the current fiscal year $409,429 in the red.

Trustees unanimously approved an interim budget report certifying that the Moorpark Unified School District will be able to pay its bills for the next two fiscal years. But with 30 new elementary schoolteachers swelling the payroll, the district will need to draw on its general fund reserve to balance its books.

“We knew we were going to extend ourselves, but we didn’t know how much,” trustee Greg Barker said before the meeting.

The portion of the district’s reserves set aside for economic crises has already fallen below 3% of the overall budget--the state-recommended amount that districts should save--and has landed Moorpark on a county list of districts whose finances bear close scrutiny.

But Ken Prosser, the county’s director of school business advisory services, said Moorpark was merely feeling the same pinch as other districts grappling with the statewide effort to cut class sizes in primary grades.

“This was a year when a lot of districts thought they were going to be fat, and it turned out to be a year in which they’re not,” he said.

Prosser met with Moorpark school district officials in January to review finances. The district, he said, is not in financial danger.

“I’m confident they’ll work through this downturn and get back up again,” he said.

Although the state has provided some funding for class-size reduction efforts, the money does not cover the program’s full cost. Moorpark has received about $1.17 million from the state for new teachers’ salaries, benefits and books, plus $400,000 for portable classrooms. However, the class-size reduction effort has still cost the district between $500,000 and $600,000.

“That’s been the double hit. We’ve had to make a contribution in terms of teachers’ salaries and in terms of portables,” trustee David Pollock said.

The interim report approved Tuesday predicts that the district will spend about $32.6 million by the end of the fiscal year and receive about $31.2 million. Most of the difference can be covered by transfers between the district’s many funds, but about $409,429 is expected to come from reserves.

The state of the district’s finances will take on greater importance soon as district officials study ways to fund a slew of construction and renovation projects needed throughout Moorpark. In January, Supt. Thomas Duffy outlined for the board a $20-million list of projects and said the district may need to issue bonds to pay for them.

Board President Tom Baldwin said the district’s future financial health will depend largely on how fully the state pays for the class-size reduction effort next year. And that may not be determined by the time that Moorpark trustees begin work on next year’s budget, probably in May.

“It’s always a crapshoot until September,” he said.