Dear Colleagues:

At their meeting on Thursday, April 23, our School Board voted to adopt an operating budget of $167 million for the 2015-16 school year. This is slightly above the $166.98 million operating budget I proposed in my original funding request this past January.

We went into last evening’s meeting with a funding gap of $246,000, and staff proposed this deficit be eliminated by making a modest adjustment in our staffing formula for next year. Based upon recent experience and a careful evaluation of instructional needs and available resources, we are confident there will no substantive impact on class sizes in any of our schools as the result of this action.

The Board made two decisions on employee compensation using a portion of our available fund balance. The salary increases for teachers will now take effect for the full year; approximately a 2% increase will be applied overall to the teacher scale. The scale is developed based on market data, so increase amounts (including step) vary depending on relative market position of that step. The effective date for the merit increase of 2.3% for classified staff has been moved up from mid-October to October 1.

In other changes, the Board also voted to set aside $90,000 to support students who participate in arts programming and extracurricular competitions and in such related activities as Destination Imagination. We also will spend $60,000 next year to begin converting archived student records from paper to digital form to ensure the safety and security of these records.

In my January message accompanying my funding request, I said two paths were before us: one that positioned our children to excel from opportunities; the other limiting the best we can do for children. Both our School Board and our Board of Supervisors chose the former path.

I also said that what separated us from other school divisions across the country are the people who make uncommon excellence very common every day in our schools, departments and offices. I was reflecting the judgment and gratitude of our entire community, which ranked employee compensation as the top priority this year. Our School Board clearly shared these views, and the actions they took last night were well-deserved.

Throughout this budget season, many of you invested a great deal of passion and effort in participating in the public discussion on the 2015-16 budgets, and more importantly, over the values it should further and protect. I would like to thank you for your efforts and for caring so deeply about our mission and those whom it serves.

We are having another extraordinary year in unleashing the potential of our students. Our elected officials and our community agree. As the result of this broad-based support, and because of your continuing and uncompromising embrace of excellence, next year will be even better.

Pam