Wake school board approves '08-'09 budget

Raleigh, N.C. — Nearly a month after it was forced to cut $39 million from its spending plan, the Wake County Board of Education unanimously approved its budget Tuesday for the school year.

The Board of Commissioners allotted the Wake County Public School System $319.2 million in its county budget for the 2008-2009 school year – nearly $36 million less than what the school board had requested.

Among items cut to accommodate the reduction were $543,600 in signing bonuses; $3.3 million for programs for academically gifted students; and $4.4 million for foreign language programs in elementary schools

The school system had asked for more than $355 million so that it could continue to provide its current level of services and programs for an estimated 6,000 additional students next school year, officials had said. About $25 million of that money would have gone to new education programs.

Although it did not get from the county what it had requested, the school system did get a 6 percent increase from the 2007-2008 school year allocation.

County money accounts for a third of the Wake school system's budget. The state supplies 61 percent, and the federal government provides 6 percent.

Those sources will bring the school system's budget to around $1 billion for the new fiscal year, which began July 1.