For Kentucky educators, it's worst-case-scenario time.

        In light of a state budget impasse, Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit has offered local school districts guidance on how to prepare tentative working budgets that must be adopted by Thursday.

        “In December 2001, the Division of School Finance sent to each district a worst-case and a best-case scenario. Due to the uncertainty with which you must proceed, I recommend you use the worst-case scenario in your budget development process,” Mr. Wilhoit said in a May 15 e-mail to the state's 176 superintendents.

        School chiefs said they are operating under the presumption that the state's budget will not include any new money for local districts, and that districts will be required to pick up part of the required 2.7 percent raise for certified and classified employees.

        A new, two-year budget cycle begins July 1; and a special legislative session to pass a budget — after the General Assembly failed to do so by an April deadline — collapsed May 2. Gov. Paul Patton sent legislators home to “cool off” and indicated he would summon them back to Frankfort before July 1.

        Ludlow Independent Schools is among a handful of Northern Kentucky districts that have yet to approve a tentative budget.

        “It makes it very difficult because you're operating with limited knowledge,” Superintendent Elizabeth Grause said. “So we try to be very, very conservative.”

        The budget crisis has resulted in pink slips to scores of nontenured teachers and classroom aides in school districts across the state. Most schools hope to rehire employees once a budget is approved.

        “It would just be like your own personal checking account. You don't want to write a check if you're not really sure how much is going to be in that account,” said Madelynn Coldiron, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky School Boards Association.

        Mr. Wilhoit told the superintendents that he lacks the power to waive the law requiring local school boards to adopt a tentative working budget by Thursday.

        Mr. Wilhoit said state officials will be “flexible during these difficult times.”

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