January 30,
2009
To:
From: Nick J.
Brossoit, Ed.D., Superintendent
Re:
State Fiscal – School Funding Update
I hope this finds you well after the
dramatic weather related events which stormed us out of 2008 and into
2009. After seeing snow “again” the Sunday night before we all returned on
Jan. 5th, it was nice to see pavement show the next day. Many
had challenges for work and personal travel with the flooding that came later in
the month. Hopefully, we have seen the major winter events; still,
experience suggests we will see something more before the first blooms of
spring. There are reports we may even see snow this week; so stay
tuned. Today the sun is shining and for that we are thankful. Your
continued caring and professional service are always in season, and greatly
appreciated.
With this month’s letter, I want to
provide: an update on the state’s fiscal situation; how it is looking for public
school district funding as the legislative session is now underway, and how it
could impact us in our district. Here is what we know, what we have to
wait to learn, and what we will be doing.
As you know, the state’s revenue
forecast (from the early fall to December when the Governor had to submit her
biennial budget) grew from just over a $3 billion projected shortfall to just
under $6 billion. Most all of this is a result of the drop in consumer spending
and less sales tax revenue projected for the state. The Governor’s budget
made tough decisions to reduce state spending in response to this economic
crisis. We have evaluated the impacts of the Governor’s proposal. Clearly,
the difficult work of closing our two smallest elementary schools for 2009-2010
will help towards next year’s budget challenge. However, even with those
changes, there will still be additional reductions we will need to make.
The state will generate another set of fiscal forecasts in March; that revenue
forecast is expected to be worse than at the time of the Governor’s budget
proposal – perhaps approaching an $8 billion state shortfall. The House
and Senate will develop their respective state biennial budget proposals.
They could adopt the Governor’s budget and/or modify their respective proposals
depending on the new revenue forecast. They could also change “how”
reductions are proposed. Once these budgets are out in the legislative
process, the debate happens and leads to the end of the session with final
legislative agreements on the budget. That will be months from now and we
have to plan before knowing final numbers.
In addition to communicating with
lawmakers for the best school funding possible, we will be having our budget
advisory committee, as well as administrative and Board level study sessions to
review these state budgets and process potential impacts to our district.
We will develop plans as necessary to address the fiscal challenges. In
any uncertain time, more certain information is what people would like to have;
in particular, when it comes to things such as school funding and how it will
impact people’s work and lives. Still, specific information is not
available until the legislative process concludes and it will be late spring
when we can analyze the details to determine the exact impacts. As ideas
or areas for possible reductions are discussed, there will be many different
views and concerns. Please be mindful that this situation is fiscal
challenge is global, national, and shared by states and all public and private
entities; it will not be pleasant for any; we will work together and get through
it as best we can.
Communication is and will be
important. Please know that we will keep everyone informed as we move
forward and we will have open meetings for any staff, parents, or interested
persons from the community. These meetings will be later in our school
year as they have been in recent years. At these meetings, we will share
information and seek input leading to the 2009-2010 school district
budget. If you have questions along the way, please feel free to ask and
thank you again for your
service.