A $4 million windfall should ease the Ventura County Community College District's budget woes, allowing classified employees to return to 40-hour work weeks and eliminating the need for a salary rollback for faculty members.

Community college faculty, staff, employees and trustees spent weeks agonizing over how to balance the district's budget under the constraints of the state's fiscal crisis.

When the budget was finally signed by Gov. Gray Davis, the district gained about $3.5 million. The district also gained about $700,000 in increased revenues and additional savings from the 2002-2003 budget.

"We just didn't do a lot of things toward the end of the year that we otherwise might have," interim Chancellor Bill Studt said of the savings carried over from last year's budget.

"It was a dollar here, a dollar there."

Trustees for the district will get an update on the budget and start figuring out what to do with the extra money at their meeting Tuesday at the Cowan Center at the Camarillo Airport. The meeting begins with a closed session at 4 p.m., followed by reports at 6 p.m. and the regular meeting at 7 p.m.

The money is not enough to restore all of the cuts made in the past few months. The district's employee unions will negotiate with the district to determine what will get funded first.

"We're still in a deficit. There's not going to be enough to cover all" the union's budget concessions, said Larry Miller, president of the faculty union, AFT Local 1828, "(but) we said all along the budget wasn't going to be as bad as they were predicting."

Studt said he expects the salary rollbacks for the faculty will be eliminated, and the work hours for classified employees who have been working 37.5-hour work weeks will be restored to 40.

However, positions that have been eliminated will not be reinstated, and people who were laid off will not have their lay-off notices rescinded, Studt said. Most employees whose positions were eliminated were able to find other jobs within the district, he said.

Restoring the salary rollbacks and work hours will cost about $2.5 million. Studt said he will recommend the trustees place any additional money into their reserve accounts, in case the budget situation takes another turn for the worse during the year.

"We believe the property tax (revenue) has been overstated by the state," Studt said.

"That could be $1.5 million (in cuts at) mid-year, and who knows after the (governor's recall) election in October the new governor may come in and slash this year's budget."

"We need to be very careful how we spend that money."