TRAVERSE CITY -- It's no surprise that school districts across the state are facing a financial crisis.  The Traverse City Area Public School District is not only addressing their current budget but also looking at their financial forecast for next year.

"We're being proactive in our approach to this.  It's going to be challenging and the board has discussed all those things," says TCAPS chief financial officer, Paul Soma.

Soma, is talking about the approach the district is taking to work with current financial challenges and those for the upcoming school year.

During a formal board of education meeting on Tuesday, board members and administrators focused primarily on their financial forecast.

"And develop a plan to deal with those variables.  It's somewhat comforting to know our district has been managed in a fiscally responsible way," says Soma.

Soma says part of TCAPS plan involves reductions for the upcoming school year, since the district is facing a future budget shortfall of more than $7 million.

Some ideas for the reductions were presented to the board last month by a budget advisory task force, but Soma says TCAPS focus is minimizing the impact of any cuts.

"Including how those reductions would impact the operation.  It appears there's a consensus that we will have to make at least $6 million in budget reductions," says Soma.

Now, despite the financial crisis that schools across the state are facing, Soma says that TCAPS is staying on top of the situation all to keep the district informed.

"We've been on top of this the whole time.  We have used the underlying financial information we get from the state to plan our budget and therefore the board and administration came together and kind of accepted that given where we are now, we do see what's going to happen in the future," says Soma.

Soma says the next step for the TCAPS financial forecast is to identify the specific reductions that will need to be made for the 2011 school year.  He says the board will discuss these issues in about a month at their February 8th meeting.