FAILURE to restore a Stormont government will have a devastating impact on schools, teachers have warned.
Schools are having to make cuts while remaining in the dark about how much money they actually have.
The new financial year is approaching but there are no agreed budgets due the political situation.
Debts are already soaring, with schools predicted to be £75 million in the red in the next three years.
Without an Executive, the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance can allocate up to 75 per cent of budgets to departments at the end of March.
The Department of Education has written to schools telling them they face "an extremely challenging budgetary position in 2017/18".
Finance director Gary Fair said it could not yet confirm individual budgets for 2017/18, adding that schools would need to make "difficult decisions" in advance of the start of the new financial year.
In his letter to governors, Mr Fair said the department had to "plan for a level of reductions to inform their spending plans in the initial months of the year".
Provisional budgets for each school have been placed on the department's website "for planning purposes".
"The budget outcome for your school in 2017/18 will only be known following discussions taken by the incoming administration," Mr Fair wrote.
"There is likely to be an extremely challenging budget position in 2017/18. It is therefore essential that you identify those areas of spend that can be deferred until there is more certainty over the budget position and the scale of any reductions required."
NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said the letter "should serve as a wake-up call to Northern Ireland's politicians".
"School budgets in Northern Ireland have already been cut back to the bone. If these cuts are to proceed schools will find it impossible to maintain their current high quality of education," she said.
"Schools in Northern Ireland are already stretched to the limit, any new cuts will have profound consequences. Schools cannot afford to make any more teachers and support staff redundant."
The union's national official for Northern Ireland Justin McCamphill added that budget cuts would "cripple public services" if devolution was not restored.
