In the coming months, all DoD entities including DoDEA will confront significant uncertainty regarding the amount of budgetary resources available for the remainder of the fiscal year. This website will help DoDEA stakeholders stay informed about planning efforts to address this critical situation.

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Two sources of budget uncertainties:

The Continuing Resolution (CR)

The Continuing Resolution (CR), which will remain in effect until at least March 27, 2013. The CR holds us to Fiscal Year (FY) 12 spending levels and permits no new program starts this year. Since we were expecting our budget to increase in FY 13, funds will run short at the current rate of expenditure if the CR continues through the end of the FY 13.

Potential Sequestration

The American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) of 2012 signed into law on January 2, 2013, deferred sequestration until March 1, 2013. The act averted much of what has become known as the "fiscal cliff." Although the bill mostly deals with automatic changes scheduled to take effect for tax rates and programs such as Medicare and unemployment insurance, it also makes several important changes to sequestration that affect the Department of Defense. Specifically, it delays sequestration by two months. This creates significant additional uncertainties for managing our operations.

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Immediate steps we are taking to slow down spending

• Cease all non-mission critical travel.
  
• Suspend the Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DoDDS) Transfer Program for School Year 2013-2014, except as may be necessary to place excess employees. We will make every effort to place excess educators, as we do every year.
  
• Suspend the Administrator Rotation Program for School Year 2013-2014. All efforts will be made to ensure all excess employees are placed.
• Cease all training and conferences, unless they are mission-essential.

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Potential Impact on DoDEA

• There will be a significant impact on DoDEA operations.
• If furloughs become necessary, that they will be done universally and apply to all DoD employees including school level employees.
• Our first priority is to mitigate the negative impacts that sequestration will have on our ability to provide quality educational services. No decisions have been made at this point.
• Critical functions that support the operation, health, safety and security of school operations will continue, e.g., transportation, safety attendants, and bus security attendants at this time.

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Planning underway

All DoD entities are now developing plans outlining how we might handle a budget shortfall in FY 13 because of CR and potential sequestration budget uncertainties. It is important to note that planning does not assume that any of these unfortunate events will occur, only that we must be ready.

There are limited areas in our budget from which to generate any savings in the last six months of a budget cycle. Nonetheless, we have to be prepared to accomplish our mission to the best of our ability given the constraints that may affect our school system. We must operate in a strict culture of savings now. .

In all of our planning, we will offer steps that are reversible in the event that a budget resolution is reached in Congress. .

We will keep our employees, parents, and communities informed at each and every step along the way.

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