OCEANSIDE - Oceanside's community college system will escape Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget ax with a relatively light trim, MiraCosta College officials said Friday.

Supported almost entirely by ample local property taxes, the community college district of three campuses and a $90 million budget expects to get $170,000 to $200,000 less next year than it did this year, said Jim Austin, vice-president of business and administrative services.

However, those reductions in 12 special "categorical" programs will effect the college's most vulnerable students.

"Those are your most needy students," Austin said. "They're the single parents, they're the disabled, they're the students who need the most counseling and tutoring. We'll have to find funding in other places to do that - so there is an impact, but it's not a huge impact right now."

The college plans on spending about $3.4 million on categorical programs this year, said Becky Trayer, the college's director of fiscal services.

Austin's comments come a week after Schwarzenegger, citing a projected $14 billion state budget shortfall over the next 18 months, declared a fiscal emergency during his state-of-the-state address Jan. 10.

Schwarzenegger ordered most state agencies to gird for what he described as a 10 percent reduction in expected state funding. That 10 percent number was based what agencies received this year and the increases they expect next year.

The governor proposes to give the state's public schools and community colleges $400 million less than they had anticipated for the remainder of this fiscal year. He also proposes cutting $4.4 billion in anticipated school spending for the fiscal year that begins in July.

Of the total $400 million in public education reductions this year, the state's 72 community college systems will come away relatively unscathed with just $40 million in cuts.

"Forty million is a lot of money, but in the big picture, that's budgetary dust," Austin said.

Austin characterized Schwarzenegger's plan as a "political shot across the bow."

"The one thing I believe about that proposed budget is that it won't be the budget we'll see in October," Austin said.

Austin said the state's fiscal woes bear a silver lining. The California State University system announced last week that it will raise fees and restrict enrollment.

"The worse the economy gets, the more people come back to community college to get retraining," Austin said. "Maybe they've been laid off or their hours have been cut - so this gives them the opportunity to come back to school. Anything that sends more students our way makes us happy."

- Contact Philip K. Ireland at (760) 901-4043 or online at pireland@nctimes.com.