DISTRICT SEEKS PROP. 203 FUNDS\Bond passage critical to renovation at Ventura County colleges.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

The Ventura County Community College District is counting on the statewide bond measure on the March ballot to provide funding critical to completing new and expensive classroom buildings on all three campuses.

Proposition 203 would provide $975 million for both new construction and building renovations at California's community colleges and campuses in the two state university systems.

The college district could get as much as $4 million, officials said.

College district officials said the additional bond revenue is needed to complete a letters and science building under construction at Oxnard and a math sciences building at Ventura, as well as a math sciences building planned for Moorpark.

The district already has spent more than $1 million from district reserves to keep the Oxnard and Ventura projects on track. District officials, however, said the state has not set aside enough funding for furnishings and equipment and for renovating buildings housing math and science programs.

"If we don't get (the bond money), then we lose the ability to use those classrooms the way they were designed to be used," said Gil Putnam, the district's director of facility planning.

The funding shortfall is a result of a project's cost exceeding budgeted funding.

District officials said the problem lies in the fact that state officials set aside funding for projects several years before construction begins, with inflation driving up actual construction costs.

Putnam said funding shortfalls for furnishings and equipment, as well as renovations of existing buildings, at the three campuses are significant.

Ventura has a $678,000 shortfall, Oxnard $500,000 and Moorpark $600,000.

"The bond issue is extremely important for us for us," said Ray Di Guilio, Moorpark's vice president for administrative services.

A scenario Di Guilio fears is completing the math and sciences building and moving in by fall 1998, but not having the funding to renovate the old building.

"It doesn't complete the whole cycle," he said.

The Moorpark project also is significant because the math sciences building would cap an ambitious building program needed to keep pace with growth in the student population.

"There's been kind of a spurt in growth. The completion of the math sciences building will take us pretty close to a new plateau," Di Guilio noted.

Oxnard's letters and sciences building also is needed to accommodate a growing student population. Construction began in January and should be completed in a year.

Putnam said an equally important aspect of the project is renovating the existing labs into general classroom space.

Contractors broke ground on the Ventura math sciences building in February and the project should be completed in 18 months.

Putnam said Ventura needs the building because some 90 percent of existing science labs were built in the 1950s and do not meet current educational standards.

"The planning started with Ventura. In the meantime, Oxnard kind of outgrew their building. As for Moorpark, it was always there in its long range planning," Putnam explained of the three projects. "Nothing ever happens fast in the state."