Commissioner's Newsletter
February 14, 2003
TO: School Administrators
FROM: D. Kent King
RE: Potential Fiscal Year 2003 Withholdings
The Governor’s Office, House and Senate continued throughout this week to discuss ways to resolve the budget shortfall for FY03. The amount of tobacco securitization for FY03 approved by the House is $150 million. This revenue combined with the postponement of some obligations until FY04 and additional cuts from state agencies reduces the FY03 shortfall to approximately $82.3 million. Of the $82.3 million higher education would likely have a cut of $21 million with the remaining $61.3 million being cut from elementary and secondary education. We have prepared a simulation reflecting the impact of withholding $61.3 million in FY03. The areas of withholding are the same as in previous simulations.
Final approval of the tobacco securitization is expected next week. Your efforts in communicating with your representatives and senators the needs of your districts have caused the original projected wtihholding of $259 million to be reduced to a likely $61.3 million. We will inform you as soon as possible of final withholdings as well as when such withholdings will begin.