Budget Communications Toolkit
| Communicating with Staff | | | Communicating with News Media | | | Communicating using Social Media |
| | Templates and Tools |
Budget Communications:
Use Multiple Messages and Multiple Media to Communicate
Governor Culver’s recent announcement to cut the Iowa budget by 10 percent across-the-board within the current fiscal year presents a series of challenges to school administrators. Faculty – especially the newest hires – are fearful that they may be furloughed or that they will not have jobs next year. Taxpayers may be fearful of increased property taxes being applied to offset the revenue loss from the state. Both groups have valid concerns.
The AEA Public Relations personnel have developed this communications toolkit to help school administrators respond and guide community conversations about what implications the governor’s budget cut has for local districts across the state and for education as a whole.
In this era of wide-open social media on the Internet, coupled with 24/7 news reporting by many news companies, superintendents must respond quickly to the news and clarify any misinformation that arises. Further complicating these issues is the intricacy of explaining a multi-million dollar budget in times of highly regulated state and federal mandates.
Superintendents need to communicate frequently and via multiple modes at all times. The state budget cut underscores this need more than ever. There’s no “once and done.” Each audience has a specific need-to-know.
Each district is made up of many audiences, each with a unique need to know: board members, parents, faculty, non-teaching support staff, home owners, local business people, farmers, legislators, real estate agents, parents of pre-schoolers, empty-nesters, local government leaders and retirees.
Almost every community with a school also has service clubs or community organizations. Many of those organizations are hungry for quality presentations, and in times such as these, some service groups would gladly change their program schedules so their members can get a timely update from their local school leader.
It’s easy to build on a PowerPoint template and tailor it to the interests of each audience. Plus, the presentation can be printed as handouts and posted to the district Web site. Each presentation gives the superintendent an opportunity to have personal contact with key audiences, and such moments of open dialogue can go a long way toward building trust and understanding.
Superintendents need to remember that they can almost never over communicate to staff. Use email, voice mail, staff newsletters, the school Web site, Board meetings, and information posted to faculty lounge bulletin boards. Face to face faculty meetings can build trust as well as help to allay current fears. Superintendents can also make use of video messages posted to YouTube. Almost all districts can afford to get into web-based video technology. A Flip camera costs approximately $200. It comes with software built in that will allow the user to videotape a brief presentation or talk, upload it to a computer, convert it to a Windows media video file and post it to YouTube. Using this technology, a superintendent can “tape” and post a video message to YouTube in less than an hour’s time.
Skilled superintendents focus on how to translate budget numbers into numbers people – students and staff – can understand. Compare school budget items to family expenses such as cable TV subscriptions, fuel costs, average mortgage payments, etc.
Call us for help. Your AEA Public Relations personnel are here to serve you, help with your specific messages, answer your questions, and just talk things over if you want to think it through before publishing. Give us a call any time.
