School and City Budgets: Ventura citizens weigh in

Both the Ventura school district and the City held community budget forums this week.

For many attendees, the economic meltdown and the State of California are responsible for threatening our quality of life and future, forcing conscientious local officials to slash vital library, school, park, public safety and youth services and putting even more local residents out of work. To them, cutting vital public services is a dire threat that must be resisted.

For some in the community, however, it is the chickens coming home to roost -- years of overspending and misspending finally catching up with the elected officials and staffs who've presided over waste and foolish priorities.

And, of course, there are lots of people trying to sort through the clashing rhetoric and get to facts and solutions.

On Monday evening at Balboa Middle School, local school officials laid out in detail the financial picture for Ventura schools. Although the school workforce was reduced by 25 teachers last year and 10 other staff along with reductions in maintenance and classroom materials, the School Board used Federal stimulus funds and internal financial adjustments to cushion the loss of $18 million over the last two years. "Most of the strategies have been one-time strategies," noted Superintendent Trudy Arriaga. "Now our schools face a funding cliff."

The alternatives are not pretty. With more cutbacks to education proposed for next year by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the district is facing teacher and staff lay-offs -- leading to larger class sizes and fewer counselors for secondary students, less support and maintenance staff in the classroom and on school campuses. Cutbacks in athletics, textbooks and what's left of art and music. Perhaps shorter school days or a shorter school year and/or furloughs, salary and benefit reductions.

It's not just a local problem, obviously. Cutting education at the State level has resulted in thousands of lay-off notices across a State with double digit unemployment. Locally Ojai and Moorpark districts have already acted to shorten their school years.

The 100 parents and staff in attendance at the budget forum shared the deep concern of district officials and the volunteer members of the District's Budget Advisory Committee. "As a community, when do we say, 'Enough is enough!'?" Arriaga asked. "When do we say, 'This is not okay for my kids!'?" She urged attendees to send a strong message to Sacramento not to balance the budget by cutting education. She also raised the option of going to voters with a local parcel tax to fund our schools.

Saturday's city budget workshop drew and even larger attendance, including Superintendent Arriaga and two of her board members, Mary Haffner and Debbie Golden, who'd been at the School District budget discussion. Nearly 200 people jammed Poinsettia Pavilion for an interactive forum with Councilmembers and City staff.

There were five options on the table for discussion, with only new taxes ruled out, due to the voter verdict last November on Measure A, a temporary sales tax hike that would have provided additional funding for public safety, infrastructure and aid to the County Library system to keep Wright Library open.

While the School District has relied on Federal funding and one-time shifts to forestall deep cuts, the City has been reducing spending since the onset of the recession to maintain a balanced budget. But after approving $11.4 million in cuts to balance this year's budget, additional reductions are sure to be controversial. Already, neglected medians are drawing ire from residents. The Council has resolutely resisted spending money they don't have. That gets even harder next year because revenue estimates have been revised downward by $4 million in line with the continuing weak economy.

City Council members and key city staff facilitated roundtable discussions seeking feedback on the five options identified for balancing next year's budget:

1. Further reductions in lower priority programs and expenses
2. Continuation of employee compensation reductions
3. “Re-inventing” services to reduce costs
4. “Muddling through” with project delays, funding shifts and other short-term measures that are not sustainable over the long run
5. Promote additional revenue through economic development or other approaches

Feedback was lively, in-depth and diverse. There was strong consensus against borrowing and in favor of pension reform and lots of questions and suggestions about specific ways to cut costs along with concerns about the impact of further cuts to either programs or employees.

Both the School District and the City are committed to meeting their deadlines for adopting a balanced budget by July 1, in contrast to the ongoing stalemate in State government. The next opportunity for weighing in on City budget choices will be a downtown drop-in event in conjunction with Artwalk to draw an even-larger cross-section of local residents.

For more on the School District's challenges, click here. For more on the City's challenges and respond to our survey, click here.