Budget Message from Superintendent Green |
June 20, 2011
As many of you may already know, the North Carolina General Assembly's budget is now official despite Governor Perdue's veto earlier this week. Both the House and Senate had enough votes to override the veto.
This budget does impact public education in North Carolina, but will certainly not change our priorities of trying to provide the best opportunities for our students. While we are still finalizing how this budget will impact Guilford County Schools, we expect that GCS will have to cut at least $15.2 million. We had been anticipating cuts of more than $35 million. As part of the budget bill, there is a provision that will allow school districts to increase the school year from 180 days and 1,000 instructional hours to 185 days and 1,025 instructional hours. Staff is currently analyzing what this would mean for GCS, should we decide to increase the amount of instructional time.
We will continue to discuss the budget and any potential increase in instructional days with the Board of Education at our next board meeting on June 30. During this time, I will recommend to the board that we do not use Tier Three cuts, which included a two-day salary reduction for employees making $35,000 or more. With Tier One covering about $13.3 million, district staff will recommend to the board how to use cuts in Tier Two to cover the total $15.2 million or more in cuts.
We will update you as we receive more details about our budget. There's a lot of work ahead of us, but I'm grateful that I have you on my team. If you have any questions concerning the budget, please e-mail feedback@gcsnc.com.
Sincerely, Maurice "Mo" Green
|
