Conejo school district finalizes budget, anticipates keeping some teachers who had received pink slips

Conejo Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) has approved next year's budget, which Dep. Superintendent of Business Services Jeff Baarstad called "the most difficult we've ever attempted."

The estimated ending balance for the district is a little more than $7 million, which mostly consists of the staterequired 3 percent reserve. Baarstad said if the district is forced to dip into that, which is expected, it will be replenished with money from the workers' compensation fund.

Baarstad acknowledged a "monumental" deficit of $8.45 million.

"That's the first thing we're going to have to deal with in the 2010-11 school year," he said. He's repeatedly warned that the next couple of years are likely to be even worse than this one.

The budget was based on some assumptions, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's May revised budget proposal.

Income will consist of more than $4 million in cuts recently approved by the board and $10.18 million in federal stimulus monies.

"That's a huge amount of money from the government," Baarstad said. "If we're getting that, it shows how big this federal stimulus movement is."

The money will allow the district to bring back about 40 teachers who had received pink slips, he said.

The district was also awarded some flexibility in transferring funds formerly assigned to specific programs. For example, state money that was earmarked for an art program can now be transferred into the general fund.

At a special budget meeting Monday evening, Baarstad walked through the $3.5 million added to the general fund.

The district discontinued the communitybased tutoring program, taking all $57,871 from it. CVUSD transferred $45,000 of the GATE program's $158,000 and $36,000 of the $86,897 earmarked for the California exit exam testing funds.

An arts and music block grant gave the district an extra $291,117.

The district did leave several programs intact, including the adult education program, which costs $2.25 million.

"There are some districts that just about dismantled their adult ed program," Baarstad said.

"It may be something to look at down the road, but we have a pretty good adult ed program. We're not touching it," he said.

The entire school-safety fund, as well as the International Baccalaureate and Global Entrepreneurship programs, were saved.

Tenth-grade counseling and at-risk student counseling monies, totaling more than $600,000, were also spared.

Of the more than $10 million of available funds from specific programs, the district transferred a little more than $3.5 million into its general fund.

Just days before the meeting, Baarstad said, more bad news came from Sacramento—statefunded transportation monies are to be cut by 65 percent, costing the district $775,000. However, the cut may be reduced to 20 percent.

The budget approval came just days after last week's board vote to stop any further cuts to the 2009-10 school year.

"What we're going to have to do next year is going to be double this," Baarstad said.

He urged the board the "take a break" from budget actions for two or three months and be aware that because of one-time stimulus money, CVUSD has been given a pass for a year.

The board agreed unanimously.

The board approved several layoffs at the district office and at school sites last week. The district had already implemented hiring and purchasing freezes.

The board also approved last week a two-day cut in the school year, which was agreed upon after meetings with the California School Employees Association and the Unified Association of Conejo Teachers.

Certificated and classified management also agreed.

"This is now being called the 'Lost Decade of Education in California,'" said Baarstad. "All the progress made over the last 10 years has disappeared in the last 14 months."

Baarstad said education funding levels are back to where they were in 2000.