By PAT NEWMAN
pnewman@thecitizennews.com

Fayette County schools' proposed instructional budget for fiscal year 2001 is just shy of $1.18 million, estimated Stuart Bennett, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

“This is a reduction of about $280,000 across the board,” he noted, comparing the figures to FY2000.

Monday night's school board work session allowed department heads to present their fiscal needs to the board, and in most cases the budgets either remained the same as last year or decreased.

The single most expensive item on each department budget form was textbooks, costing anywhere from $10,500 for textbooks in the gifted budget for grades K-12 to $160,000 for K-12 math textbooks. The total is approximately $500,000, not including the cost of the new vocational program textbook adoption, Bennett said.

“The vast percentage [of the money] goes to classrooms and to teaching materials to teach the class,” Bennett said. Money also will be used to begin replacing computers in writing labs, Bennett added. Wiring portable classrooms for internet access and cable is another priority in the instructional budget.

Orchestra classes will be added to the curriculum at Starr's Mill and Fayette County high schools for the first time next school year.

Another big ticket item, aside from computers and instruments, is the quantity of books and periodicals for the schools' media centers, reading and language arts programs. Books and periodicals for the gifted budget are estimated to cost $12,000; language arts, $21,000; reading $20,000.