Las Virgenes Unified School District begins to make budget cutbacks





By John Loesing
Acorn Staff Writer

Gov. Gray Davis hopes that a combination of higher cigarette, vehicle and retail sales taxes in the revised state budget will help prevent massive cuts in education, but Las Virgenes school officials said they’ve still been forced to lop more than $2.8 million from local classrooms to make ends meet.


"People are feeling these cuts aren’t as bad as they originally thought," said John Fitzpatrick, Las Virgenes superintendent. "We don’t see it that way."


The school district balanced its $80 million budget last week by shaving more than 30 programs and services.


An 11th hour donation of $300,000 by Las Virgenes Education Foundation saved further cuts in high school music, drama and athletics. The Foundation also raised money to help the elementary school reading specialists and middle school and high school counselors.


In one of the final budget hearings of the spring, the school board wrangled for almost three hours over which programs to axe. Among the hardest hit were special education and the district’s elementary school intern program.


"The last thing we want to do is make cuts, but we have to," Fitzpatrick said.


The cuts included $150,000 for the intern program, $160,000 for a pair of counseling positions and $60,000 for the elementary school Primary Intervention Program. The school board hopes to salvage the counselors, the intervention program and items such as library services if the Foundation can meet its goal of raising additional money.


The group is trying to collect another $350,000 in time for the June 30 budget deadline.


"We’re talking from seven o’clock in the morning and until 10 at night," said Stuart Selter, Foundation vice president. "We know the clock is ticking."


Selter said the Foundation would continue to solicit funds from residents, business leaders, chambers of commerce and city councils. During the last two weeks, many of the district’s 13 schools hosted a phone bank drive to solicit funds from the community.


Also hit hard by the cuts will be class size reduction. The school board said it would save $145,000 by increasing high school classes from 30 to 31 students. Increased class sizes in grades four through eight would save $150,000.


The class size cuts will result in a loss of six teacher positions, Fitzpatrick said. The board also reduced Indian Hills High School’s staff by two and saved an additional $95,000.


The Foundation hopes its new donations will help save the class size reduction.


Officials originally planned to reduce expenditures for high school athletics—such as buses, uniforms and equipment—by $100,000, but donations from the Foundation reduced those cuts by $50,000.


The Foundation also saved two full-time elementary school reading teachers and $25,000 in cuts from the high school music and drama programs.


The school board is expected to vote in July on a $3-4 million parcel tax against property owners. It said it also would raise revenues by implementing home schooling, leasing a cell phone site and charging high schools student activity groups for accounting services.


At the bottom of the budget cut list are the salaries and benefits for school district employees, both teachers and administrators.


Negotiations with the teachers union currently are underway.



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