School superintendents across the state received an e-mail Monday from Georgia Department of Education Deputy Superintendent Scott Austensen announcing that “due to severe reductions in state revenue, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget has informed us that K-12 education will be reduced by 2 percent (in the 2008-2009 school year).”

The e-mail further stated that there will be a 3 percent reduction in the 2009-2010 school year.

Griffin-Spalding County School System Superintendent Jesse Bradley issued a statement Thursday outlining how the Griffin-Spalding system will deal with the shortfall in funding.

“We have asked department heads (at the superintendent’s office level) to develop contingency plans to cut up to 10 percent of their budgets,” Bradley said. “As always, we feel it is important to protect classrooms and direct services to students. How long we can continue to do that, I don’t know.”

At the elementary level, teachers will only be hired to meet student enrollment projections. Currently, there are more regular teachers hired than needed for the student-teacher ratio.

In the past, retirees were hired part time to teach in the Early Intervention Program because of the number of students needing services. Now, with student enrollment down, full-time teachers will be repositioned to teach these students. This will eliminate the need for hiring retirees in these positions and generate almost $400,000 in savings for the school system.

At the middle and high school level, student enrollment will dictate if further adjustments need to be made in teaching assignments.

According to Finance Director Jim Smith, the specific dollar amount of the shortfall in state funding is yet to be determined, but he expects the final figure for Griffin-Spalding to exceed $1 million for the 2008-2009 school year.

“The cutbacks being discussed in Atlanta can have a very serious adverse effect on our program but can be managed if we take appropriate steps now,” Smith said.