Awakening to the news of the passage of Prop 100 clarified our options for dealing with the current budget crisis.  I know that it has not been easy waiting for the outcome of the electionor for the recommendations that will be presented to the Governing Board.  Thank you for your patience.  At a special Board meeting on Monday, May 24 at 5:30 in the high school library, I will make recommendations to the Governing Board about bridging the budget gap for fiscal year 2010-2011.  I hope you’ll see that the news is much better than it could have been but, as I have said before, these recommendations will not be entirely painless.

•           For a number of reasons, I believe that it is most prudent not to offer a tuition-funded full-day kindergarten.  Principal Jeanne Powell proposes to offer 10 half-day sections next year (taught by a total of five teachers), two of which will be for ELL students.  Mrs. Powell believes that these non-ELL sessions of kindergarten will each have fewer than 20 students.

•           I cannot overstate how important the attrition issue was for the District this year.  Certainly we hate to see anyone leave us and we wish them well.  Administrators and I have met to finalize the staff-reassignments that we will recommend to cover the positions of staff who have decided to leave us.  The good news is that we believe that NO certificated staff will actually lose a job, because every position vacated due to attrition can be covered by existing staff.  We also believe that this movement will also help us address class-size imbalances at different grades.  Therefore, we expect to issue no RIF notices to teachers, and no more than four classified employees (support staff) are projected to lose their jobs

•           Our desire was to make any necessary cuts less painful for all employees.  One dilemma was how to find a final $140,000 to meet our expected total cuts.  We considered at least two options:  eliminating benefits for those working fewer than 32 hours or reducing salaries/benefits for our returning retired workers.  After much soul-searching and pencil sharpening, we believe we can squeeze this amount out.  The bottom line—the District does not anticipate having to reduce benefits for anyone currently earning them, at least for the 2010-2011 contract year.

•           I am also recommending the elimination of about $25,000 in addendum contract positions that are non-essential.  They are positions that have been helpful, but are not critical for the survival of the programs affected.  The decision about which addendum contracts will be eliminated will be made by administrative and athletic/extra-curricular coaches and sponsors.

At Monday’s meeting, Board members will be asked to approve a list of employees who will be offered contracts and wage notices next year.  Nearly every current Blue Ridge employee’s name will be on that list. While there is not a salary increase for anyone this year, I am so pleased that we have preserved nearly all jobs and benefits for our employees

Our administrators have considered several issues looming on the horizon that will have to be addressed sooner rather than later.  They include: declining enrollment/school consolidation; our returning retired salary/benefits offerings; the high cost of benefits for all employees; the expiration of the ARRA (Stimulus) funds that currently fund a number of our aide positions (these funds are set to run out at the end of 2010-2011); and, the necessity for the District to pass another override in November of 2011.

While the passage of Prop 100 buys us some time, it does not eliminate some continuing concerns we face.  It is still true that the District faces about a million dollars in cuts to state funding for 2010-2011.  While these cuts will not be painless, we are actually very fortunate to have fared as well as we have. As we projected, Prop 100’s passage helps make it possible for our District to offer almost every program and service to its students in 2010-2011 that we proudly offered last year.  There will be some changes, but a vast majority of programs and services will remain intact and relatively unchanged from previous years.

Last year was very difficult; we made cuts that many questioned then and perhaps still do.  However, I also believe that we have seen that these decisions faced nearly every other district; the difference seems to be one of whether the tough decisions were made last year or this year.  I remain grateful for your support and consider it a privilege to serve this District.

Greg Schalow

Superintendent