We received word last week of an immediate 4 percent budget reduction in this year’s state funding across Kentucky. Department of Education Commissioner Draud informed local school district superintendents that we must develop a plan showing how a 4 percent budget cut would impact our districts. We are not yet sure how the 4 percent cut will be applied to local school districts, so we can’t determine exactly how much state funding Fayette County would lose in this situation. With that in mind, we tried to make plans for a worst case scenario. A couple of weeks ago, I sent an e-mail message to our staff reassuring everyone that we felt we would be able to weather this storm. Please be assured, we still feel that Fayette County will be able to come through this state budget crisis on solid financial footing.

When I came to Fayette County 4½ years ago, our contingency fund was at the state-required minimum of 2 percent. Along with our district leaders and school board, I did not feel that cushion was adequate for our district, so during the past several years, we have slowly tried to build our contingency fund to protect us against situations such as the one we now face. I am pleased to let you know that we currently have a contingency reserve of more than 5 percent. This will enable us to make up for the maximum possible state budget reduction and still have nearly two times the state required contingency fund on hand. I’m sure you will join me in thanking our budget, staffing and finance departments for the work they did to bring us to this point.

What this means to us in Fayette County is that we are not considering any layoffs to meet this announced reduction. We are very thankful that we are able to cover the state shortfall in this way, especially since many school districts, through no fault of their own, will be devastated by this cut.

Hopefully, the state Department of Education will be able to help absorb this reduction in state funding as much as possible. Every penny of this mid-year cut that is not passed on to our schools will help. At this point we do not know what the future holds, but for now we are very fortunate to be able to weather this time of national economic crisis.

As we come out of the Thanksgiving holidays, I am counting the blessings that we have been provided. We only have a few weeks before winter break, and it is so important for us to remain focused on teaching and learning. The days will fly by, and we need to ensure that our kids are getting the maximum benefit during the time they are with us.