Dear Colleagues, Parents, and Patrons:
As I did several weeks ago I want to give you an update on our district’s budget. I indicated last month the state aid numbers provided to us from the State Department of Education and the Legislature have fluctuated almost daily since we were informed that the State of Oklahoma faced a 1.4 billion dollar revenue shortfall shortly after the beginning of the New Year.To cloud things even more (albeit in a good way) we were given some major financial relief this past week by Governor Fallin when she signed off on 51 million dollars being taken out of the state’s Rainy Day Fund to give all districts some financial relief. The influx and application of these monies to our budget was fairly dramatic as we went from a revenue loss of $1,020,000 to a loss of $410,000 as of this date. That helps but we are NOT out of the woods with this ‘one time’ injection of funds to our budget!
I also explained to you in my last letter that our fiscal year ends on June 30th and there was still a possibility for an additional revenue cut between now and then—that still holds true. We won’t know the whole picture for the remainder of this fiscal year until the Legislature concludes its business on May 31st. Yes that aforementioned $410,000 number could be become larger between now and then; we will deal with that if and when it happens.
As for next year I will not ‘sugar coat’ the numbers with false optimism. We have been informed by the State Department of Education that our district could receive as much as $2,800,000 less in state aid for the 2016-17 School Year! If and when that happens will determine how deep our district has to cut to maintain full services. Those numbers are usually firmed up shortly after the legislative session by the State Department of Education. In the meantime we will have to prepare for the worst case scenarios in all areas and plan accordingly for the 2016-17 School Year.
Once again I want to reassure everyone that our school district will survive this crisis but we may not look the same a year from today. On a more optimistic note I do want to point out that our bond issue that was passed (hats off to all Owasso voters!) this past October has been a Godsend for the district. It has already helped us to offset major expenses in areas such as textbooks, technology and transportation thus freeing up funds to retain staff and programs.
It definitely makes it easier to deal with these hardships knowing that our community has our back in these tough times. I believe everyone (parents, patrons, teachers) needs to continue to do their part by contacting our legislators to encourage them to provide additional assistance any way they can in the difficult months to come. They need to know the consequences of these budget cuts and they need to hear it from other folks/teachers, not just me!
Sincerely,
Dr. Clark Ogilvie
April 1, 2016
April 1, 2016
