The seven highest-ranking administrators

in the Fayette County School System will be joined by all five members

of the Board of Education in a trip to the state Capitol Tuesday to lobby

against more school funding cuts.

Superintendent John DeCotis

will attend with six of his top managers: Vice Superintendent Fred Oliver;

assistant superintendents Pam Riddle and Wayne Robinson; Director of Personnel

Judy Byrd; Special Education Director Clemene Ramsey; and Finance Director

James Stephens.

School board members Janet

Smola, Lee Wright, Terri Smith, Marion Key and Greg Powers have all made

arrangements to attend the meeting as well.

They are scheduled to have

breakfast with the county's legislative delegation at 8 a.m. in Rep.

Virgil Fludd's office, Room 512 of the Legislative Office Building

across from the Capitol.

Fludd is hosting the breakfast

for the second year, and said all ten of the lawmakers representing the

county - three in the Senate and seven House members - have

been invited and planned to attend.

Fayette school officials were

disappointed at last year's breakfast when the local representatives

appeared to ignore the needs of the school district. While a couple of

them popped in and out, the majority of the 10 didn't show up at

all.

From there, the Fayette group

will go to the Capitol Rotunda for a mass gathering of the 6th District

Geogia School Board's Association annual meeting.

Ordinarily, one or two school

board members would make the annual visit to share concerns about school

issues and state funding. All five Fayette board members committed to

going this year to send a stronger message about proposed budget cuts

from the state.

That message: Enough is enough.

In their annual planning retreat

Jan. 31, board members heard grim news about the prospect for more cuts.

"It's not going to

be an easy year," said Stephens at the time. "We will need to

look at everything we do, from top to bottom, systemwide, from materials

to bus transportation to our facilities."

This week, department directors

were due to turn in their budgets for the coming year, which starts July

1. Next Friday, principals will face their own deadline for submitting

requests.

All have been advised to stay

frugal. Stephens plans to present a first glimpse of the 2005 budget in

March.

Fludd, the only one of the

10 lawmakers who actually lives in Fayette County, restated his committment

Tuesday to see that school funding statewide be maintained.

Gov. Sonny Perdue had already

announced he was slashing education spending by about $200 million this

year, while ordering a 2 percent raise for all teachers statewide. Local

districts would have to foot the bill for the pay raise. That's on

top of the $5.5 million in cuts from the state absorbed by Fayette taxpayers

since 2002, Stephens said.

A $179 million miscalculation

in Perdue's original budget draft had education lobbyists scrambling,

and a House version of the budget approved Wednesday restored that money

to school needs. But Fludd said it also proposes delaying the governor's

promised raise by six months, from an effective date of July 1 to Janunary

1, which builds in some breathing room. Fayette County did similar in

handing out a half percent raise in January.

Fludd said there's also

a move afoot to eliminate property taxes as a means of funding schools,

instead going to a statewide sales tax, an idea that's admittedly

burdened with flaws.

The present operations budget

for Fayette County schools is about $148 million, up from $143 million

in 2003. Of that, about 70 percent goes to pay salaries and benefits.

Stephens told board members

in January that he'll do everything he can to avoid recommending

layoffs, but didn't completly discount the possibilty.