I read with great interest the Feb. 27 editorial ("City should lend a helping hand to schools") regarding the financial position of the city of Simi Valley as compared to Simi Valley Unified School District.

Since, according to the Acorn, it is in "good financial shape," the city should look at "whatever it can do to help maintain the quality of our schools, especially preventing the loss of teachers."

I fully agree with the Acorn's assessment that the quality of our schools reflects upon the quality of our community. When relocating, businesses and residents look at the quality of the school system as a decision point in their plans.

The same can be said of the recreational opportunities in the community, the depth of the labor force, the strength of the local economy, housing costs and availability, the crime rate and the safety of the community, and so on.

Many factors weigh in the decisions of relocating businesses and residents; to highlight the school system tends to downplay the other defining factors in a community. All these items are the true building blocks of a community, and they are all truly critical.

The Acorn seems to desire that the city spend taxpayer dollars that are accumulated savings the city has set aside for its own fiscal emergencies to support an ongoing structural deficit of the school district which will continue unabated without significant state and local education funding reform.

This proposed city bailout of the school district is shortsighted at best and, if followed as governmental policy, would be a disservice to the hardworking taxpayers of this city.

It is due to considerable fiscal restraint that Simi Valley is not in the dire straits that so many cities find themselves in today.

The Acorn also needs to realize the city already does much more for our school system than most other cities of our size in the state.

The city's redevelopment agency has taken many steps to leverage and encourage private sector development in the community.

As a result of this development, the agency shares the revenue it receives with various governmental taxing entities, including the school district. Since 1985, when the agency began receiving funds, it has provided more than $8.6 million to SV Unified and will continue to provide money annually to the district until 2022.

These funds have been used to pay for technological improvements, the demolition of the Simi Valley High School swimming pool and the acquisition of three buses to transport physically challenged students, and to pay the debt service on a 1992 district bond issue.

In accordance with California law, the district may only spend the agency-provided money on capital improvements, although those expenditures may free up other district resources for personnel costs.

In addition, the city also directly funds many services that benefit local schools. This includes more than $311,000 annually to the School Crossing Guard program, more than $321,000 annually for the Youth Service program that provides counseling and employment assistance to students, more than $455,000 annually for the DARE and School Resource Officer programs that provide full-time police officers at campuses, and more than $679,000 for transportation costs for students using Simi Valley Transit to arrive at school.

Looking to the future and anticipating the current economic downturn, the City Council has taken proactive steps to reduce our own expenditures over the past two years. In doing so, the council has had to make some very hard decisions.

As the Acorn reported in its Feb. 20 edition, in December the council approved $2.8 million in budget adjustments to ensure a balanced budget for this fiscal year. Although the city has avoided layoffs to date, it is still a cost-cutting measure that looms daily.

Due to the economic downturn and the recent state budget actions, the city will need to resolve another multimillion-dollar loss in revenues in the coming year.

The City Council's fiscal responsibility has kept Simi Valley in relatively good financial shape; I anticipate that we will continue to do so.

However, if the city provides funding to the school district to help it avoid layoffs, it would inevitably lead to the layoff of city personnel. And although the city will ultimately survive the coming year, we cannot afford to fund other agencies that are also feeling the effects of this economy without risking the fiscal integrity of this city.

While the Acorn's editorial was sincere and well-meaning, it was unfortunately lacking in depth of perception and understanding of a very complicated system of governmental finance.