I want to take this opportunity to provide you with important information regarding the status of our budget for this school year.  It has always been a challenge to our organization that we start a school year in late August and within five weeks the fiscal year ends on September 30.  Every fiscal year, we experience a flurry of activity during the final days to ensure all procurements are finalized and all financial transactions accurately recorded.  Immediately on the next day, October 1, the new fiscal year commences.  Unfortunately, Congress has not yet approved the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008.  This means we are required to operate under an appropriation process referred to as a “Continuing Resolution Authority” (CRA).  This is a funding mechanism which allows government agencies to continue in operation at normal levels until the passage of the appropriations law.  The CRA is passed for specific periods of time and is effective through November 16, 2007.  The use of CRA has serious consequences on our financial resources because the amount of the approved budget is unknown until after the fiscal year has already begun.  Please understand there have been other school years in the past when our budget was not approved by October 1st.  

DoDEA adopted guidance to ensure that our schools will remain open and all employees will continue to report to work during this CRA period.  We will honor all essential contractual obligations for bus transportation, utilities, custodial support, and other fixed costs.  Normal operations for our professional development programs will proceed as it is crucial to the mission to get our teaching staff trained early in the school year.  The school administrative support teams need to be similarly trained as an important aspect of the internal management controls for the agency.  We will also operate all educational and extracurricular programs, including field trips that support the curriculum.  My office transferred funding for essential supplies to district offices to support all schools in the Pacific. However, until the DoD appropriations act is signed into law, we must use constraint in executing programs that can be judiciously delayed.  Rest assured, I remain confident that our projected expenditures will be adequately funded for this school year. 

Fortunately, we should be able to avoid impacting classroom instruction and student activity programs even under these CRA budgetary constraints.  My staff is working closely with DoDEA, district offices, and the area office support divisions in an ongoing effort to develop a strategy that maintains high quality instruction, student activities, and student support.  I sincerely appreciate your continued dedication and loyalty and your extraordinary commitment to ensuring achievement and success for all of our students in DoDDS-Pacific and DDESS-Guam.

Nancy C. Bresell
Director, DoDDS-Pacific/DDESS-Guam