Tis the Season for More Deprevations

Below is an email our staff has just received and my request/response to Governor Perdue.

"PAGE has learned from Scott Austensen, the Department of Education's Deputy Superintendent for Finance and Business Operations that the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) will not be sending QBE monies to the school districts for November and December until the last day of the month, as they do in all other months.
According to Amy Jacobs, an official with OPB, the total amount of funds is $500 million and the QBE allotment will be released at the end of November and December due to cash flow concerns. She also indicated that local school superintendents were notified of this change in September.
Prior to this the state had, as a courtesy, sent the funds earlier in those two months so that districts could issue paychecks to staff before the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. PAGE has contacted interim state school superintendent Brad Bryant to request that the courtesy be extended again this year, particularly given the morale situation caused by budget cuts, furloughs, etc. PAGE believes this move will work a hardship on all staff, particularly school support employees such as custodians, food service staff and others.We encourage concerned educators to contact Governor Perdue to request assistance in getting officials to revisit their unfortunate decision."

The link to contacting Governor Purdue is http://gov.georgia.gov/00/gov/contact_us/0,2657,78006749_94820188,00.html.

And here is what I said to the office of Governor Perdue.

"People have made major budget decisions on the expectation that we would be receiving our paychecks at the same time we have received them for years. The budget office's decision to withhold the necessary funds to do this will cause hardship for many families at a time when we desperately need normalcy. Christmas is not the time to take money away from families. We in the education community have suffered cut after cut and now when we need it least of all, you are going to cut us again. Please show compassion to the people who hold and mold the future of Georgia. We aren't asking for more we just want what we are getting when we are accustomed to getting it."