No one bothered to sign up

for the public comment portion of Monday night's meeting of the Fayette

County school board.

That's not so unusual, except

that Monday was the last opportunity for anybody other than school employees

to publicly voice support or concern for the $148 million budget pending

approval next week.

In fact, it was the only advertised

opportunity.

Public comment, from start

to finish, into the largest school operations budget in county history

in tough economic times, no less was nonexistent.

"That's just Fayette County,"

said BOE chair Terri Smith Monday night, an explanation that suggests

taxpayer faith in the school district is strong, not that residents don't

care how their money is spent.

"They know they're getting

a good product for the dollar."

But not as good a bargain as

some school districts, like neighboring Coweta County, are suggesting

to the homefolks. Last week, Coweta schools public information office

circulated a press release comparing their budget to Fayette's and suggesting

it was much more efficient.

"The total school system

budget ... comes to $175,929,615," reads the Coweta letter. "For

comparison, neighboring Fayette County has a full-time equivalent student

count of 20,778, compared to Coweta County's 17,910" and a total

budget, including operations and capital improvements, of $211,238,134,

the press release states.

The dollar amount Coweta cites

for Fayette County's FY'04 full budget isn't explained, though it is close,

Smith admitted. More shaky is Coweta's assertion, by including the "full-time

student" enrollment figures, that it costs several hundred dollars

less a year to educate a child there than in Fayette.

It's apples and oranges, in

effect. While both Coweta and Fayette avoided laying off or eliminating

any instruction postions, Fayette is also managing to open a new elementary

school and launch the 9th grade class of a new high school with few added

staff.

School budgets in Fayette County

are always slightly higher than surrounding, similar communities, Smith

pointed out, because Fayette chooses to fund extra programs and almost

always has a building program underway.

Still, it's a trend she said

has just taken off this year as public awareness of shrinking funds has

grown, to "comparison shop" school spending against Fayette

County.

"That's a fairly new phenomenom,"

Smith said. "Somebody in South Fulton asked me what we were spending,

and said they spent a whole lot more per student. Turns out they spend

twice as much on maintenance systemwide than we do."

Smith said the board is committed

to finding some kind of pay increase for teachers next year. A proposed

1 percent raise to start in July has been reduced to a possible half percent,

and that wouldn't kick in until midyear.

Coweta teachers won't be getting

a raise either, but they'll also be short on supplies. Fayette managed

to fund that portion of the budget. "I was happy we were able to

keep their jobs and have materials to teach with," said Smith. "I

talked with teachers who were disapointed, but I told them this was the

year we all should be happy to have a job."

A binding vote on the Fayette

schools budget for 2003-04 will take place Monday at 4:30 p.m. at school

system headquarters on Stonewall Avenue.

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