FW: Important Message from Superintendent

Timing is everything. At an administrative meeting today the Director of
Business Services shared early information about the upcoming budget and the
new Director of Public Relations shared general information about
administrators sharing information with their staffs and lead an exercise on
how we could share the budget information with our staffs. Oppppsss....not
time yet and Dr. Forys sent a message out to all administrators to wait
until the time is right. This just shows how complicated issues can be in a
large organization. Everyone is doing their best to present information but
when you mix the messages together you can get unintended consequences. I
am not sure that it is possible to plan for all of the contingencies. There
is still a lot of work to do to be prepared to deal with all of the issues
that will come up.

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The following is a message from Karen Forys.

Dear Colleagues,

At today¹s ATM, Dick gave an overview of the district¹s fiscal status as we
prepare for development of the 2005-06 budget. Since you have an important
leadership responsibility, we want you to have the information first, as
well as the opportunity to provide ideas prior to decision-making.

However, I do need to clarify one thing. In my judgment, it is not yet time
for you to initiate discussion about development of the 2005-06 budget with
staff, parents or students. First, we need a unified plan for what and how
we will communicate. And, of course, we need to explore all the creative
ways we may be able to ³cut the challenge down to size,² by enhancing
revenues, streamlining operations and making other moves with little or no
impact on basic services. A good example is the Board¹s recent action to
transfer capital project interest to the general fund.

Within the next few days, each association leader will be contacted and told
orally about what we are doing this year to add $1.25M to the fund balance
and that we are facing additional budget challenges for 2005-06. This
should not be new information for them as our lead negotiators made it very
clear during bargaining that cost of living increases and benefit subsidies
would lead to several rounds of budget cutting.

Also, on January 10, Board member B-Z Davis will brief PTA leaders at the
Northshore PTA Council meeting about the same issues. Per B-Z, this
information should not surprise PTA leaders either, as B-Z has mentioned it
to them several times this year. And the Board talked with PTA members at
each school last year about ³The Perfect Storm² of declining revenues and
increasing costs.

B-Z and our lead bargainers will use the attached ³talking points² when
discussing this message with association and parent leaders. I have
enclosed the ³talking points² for your review. But at this point, please DO
NOT duplicate them or pass them on. We will be far more effective when we
have a clear plan and a unified message.

If you have any questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact me or any
cabinet member. And get your creative juices going about revenue
enhancements and streamlining options. Thank you.