State Funds OKd for Several Area Schools

In a boost for the local juvenile justice system, the California Youth Authority’s Ventura School in Camarillo received more than $2.5 million in the $75.4-billion state budget signed by Gov. Pete Wilson last week.

Other area schools--including the proposed Cal State Channel Islands--also received state funding for projects, but the governor vetoed funds for Buena High School’s stadium restoration and a reading program for Oxnard elementary schools.

Among the nine projects at the Ventura School to receive state funding, the most expensive is an $837,000 security fence to separate male and female wards.

The school will receive $417,000 to convert its specialized counseling program into an intensive psychiatric treatment center for girls and $234,000 for preliminary plans and working drawings to enhance security at the school’s visitor entrance.

Roughly $16.5 million in funding was also approved to convert the former Camarillo State Hospital into the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge which, if enrollment grows, would become Cal State Channel Islands. An estimated $11.3 million will be used to develop the new campus in Camarillo and $5.2 million will be spent on campus operations and overhead.

Wilson also set aside $750,000 to help restore the Ventura Pier and $80,000 for swimming pool renovations at Santa Paula Union High School.

The Oxnard Union High School District received $4.3 million to fund the district’s extended school-year program.

The proposals survived a series of line-item vetoes by Wilson that stripped $457 million from the education budget, but not every local program made the cut and the fate of several measures continues to hang in the balance.

Wilson denied a $200,000 measure to renovate the Buena High School stadium in Ventura. The governor also vetoed legislation that called for $800,000 to fund the Oxnard Elementary School District’s “Parent Participation and Educational Technology Outreach Program.”

Sponsored by Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard), the measure sought to help preschool-age children read, in part, by teaching parents to read to their children and by improving parents’ reading skills.

Funding for two local education projects included in trailer bills, which were not signed by Wilson, will be decided by the end of the legislative session. The requests include $500,000 for a new gym at Rio Del Valle School in Oxnard and $738,000 to bus Moorpark students to the new Walnut Canyon School.