CAMARILLO : Rainstorms Damage Roofs of Schools

The fields in Camarillo may have benefited from recent rainstorms, but the city’s school buildings have been hit hard.

Roofs on all of the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District buildings, including its administration building, need to be repaired, said Tom Goins, director of maintenance, operations and transportation.

Valle Lindo School, for example, suffered major leaks in the office and in two classrooms, and Santa Rosa School’s cafetorium flooded, Goins said.

Las Colinas School, which sits on a hillside and is vulnerable to wind, had a number of dripping ceilings “because many of the areas of the roof had been blown off,” he said.

The district is planning to fix the roofs at Camarillo Heights and Las Colinas schools for a total cost of $115,000 to $120,000, leaving only $10,000 or $15,000 in the district’s deferred maintenance budget. Once that money is gone, emergency repairs will have to be paid out of the general fund.

“When you start doing things like that, it takes away from people,” he said. “We probably would have to reduce staff.”

In recent years, the state has been cutting the matching funds granted for building maintenance. This year, Goins said, the district will receive no matching funds from the state because the district could not afford to put up any money.

Voters rejected two bond issues last year that would have paid to renovate the district’s 13 schools and build a new elementary school in eastern Camarillo. The last measure, for $55 million, failed by only 2.3% of the requisite two-thirds majority vote. Trustees have decided not to ask voters to pass another bond measure until the economy improves, perhaps in 1993.