In recent days, the local media has cranked up the attention toward ”budget season” for Lehigh Valley school districts. By quickly skimming through this article’s comments you can easily recognize the decisive nature and polar opposites of public opinion in this discussion.

Despite the challenges of a strong emotional aspect, I truly believe stakeholder communication and engagement is a beneficial part of this process. Open and honest dialogue leads to the recognition of shared educational priorities, expectations and focus — while promoting a clearer understanding of aligning available resources to those needs and requirements.

This may prove to be a good segue into looking at our preliminary budget in closer detail — and offering you my perspective on the 3 R’s of school budget discussions…Rumor, Rhetoric, and Reality.

The 2010-11 Preliminary Budget for Northwestern Lehigh School District includes a projected tax increase of 2.23 mills (1.67 mills using the ECI/SAWW index, and 0.56 mills in exceptions).  Approval of the Preliminary Budget preserved the maximum consideration of local funding sources, including the exemption submissions, while meeting all the timing requirements of Act 1. I want to reiterate a very important point — this is still very much a work-in-progress budget.  There are numerous budget discussions that will continue to take place prior to the adoption of the final budget in June.

:)  Want to share your input or ideas? — please feel free to contact me via e-mail.

I will continue to recommend and support additional reductions in our expenditures that follow a “business-like” approach to improve long-term sustainability — while maintaining the focus of emphasis on the strength and quality of our academic programs.

We will explore Rumors, Rhetoric, and Reality in the next series of posts…

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