
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990                   TAG: 9004130983
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

$245,000 CUT FROM BEDFORD SCHOOL BUDGET

Bedford County School Board members Thursday night cheerily cut $245,000 from their spending plan to make it match a $35.8 million budget the Board of Supervisors last week authorized the schools to spend next year.

Though the School Board was told to reduce its spending, the cuts did not compare to reductions made in the past two years. And School Board members made it clear that they considered this year's smaller cuts a victory.

"I think the Board of Supervisors has confidence . . . in the school system that you have not seen in a number of years," said School Board member Russell Wright. Wright said he was "somewhat" disappointed that the budget was cut at all, but praised the supervisors for funding more than 99 percent of what the schools had asked for.

School Board member Ben Shrader seemed to take the supervisors' move as a sign. "I hope this is an indication that they trust us," he said.

Superintendent John Kent called the supervisors' budget decision "monumental." Most monumental, he said, was that the supervisors' vote on the budget last week was unanimous - something Kent said he could not remember seeing before.

Kent described input from members of parent-teacher organizations - who rallied for the schools budget in a public hearing - as instrumental in getting the money.

No positions were dropped or raises reduced to bring the budget into compliance with the supervisors' allotment. School Board members Thursday unanimously voted to cut the following proposed expenditures to bring their budget into balance:

by CNB