The Simi Valley Unified School District school board adopted what district staff is calling a "placeholder budget" at its meeting Tuesday evening.

Lowell Schultze, associate superintendent, business services, gave the presentation just hours before the budget deadline.

"This is only a placeholder," Schultze said. "We'll need to adopt a revised budget later. . . . There'll be change. But we need to have a starting point."

SVUSD revenue sources total $140 million, which is close to a 10 percent decrease.

Expenses, which total $146 million, have been decreased by more than 36 percent.

The cuts mostly stem from nearly $100 million in salary savings.

Schultze reviewed the state budget's May revision features, including another $24.3 billion in cuts, no cost-of-living increases and the failure of lottery and special election propositions.

He also reminded the public about the decrease in Proposition 98 funds. Prop. 98 established the minimum funding guarantee for education, based on formulas in the state's constitution.

"A lot of our expenses have gone up, but our revenue has gone down," Schultze said.

The guarantee has dropped for both 2008-09 and 2009-10 because of the continued fall in state revenues.

Declining enrollment has also hit the district—enrollment is projected to be down 104 students next year. That's a decrease in per-student funding of about $1.16 million.

"We are (focused) on making sure kids stay in school," Schultze said. "We make calls every day to those students who are out."

The district has already abolished 45 teaching positions, four certificated management positions and 52 classified positions. They've also reduced the hours of 10 more classified positions.

Money has also been saved through 52 retirees, a 20 percent reduction in stipends and an increase in ninth grade and kindergarten-through-third-grade class size.

Health insurance plans are being studied for possible reductions as well, Schultze said.

"This has been the toughest year since I've been on the board," said Janice DiFatta, who has sat on the school board for 13 years.

"Are we in a good place? Absolutely not. Would we want things to be much better? Absolutely. But when I look back to where we were in February, boy oh boy.

"I look around at what's going on in other districts, and I'm very, very proud to be a part of this district."

Board member Debbie Sandland was more cautious.

"Yes, we are in a better place, but we still laid off a lot of people, and there is still a lot of pain in education," she said.

Board member Rob Collins agreed.

"This is hopefully the roughest year we will ever face."