Sharpsville's school board will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, one hour before its regularly scheduled meeting, to discuss the tentative 2002-03 school year budget, which the board plans to adopt that night.

School director and finance committee chairman Robert Timmerman requested a special meeting to discuss the budget at Monday's board work session.

Business manager Jaime Roberts presented the preliminary figures for the tentative $10,208,724 budget, which is an increase of $137,968 over this year's budget. Expenditures of $10,950,900 have decreased $123,270 from last year. To present it to the state, $742,000 of this year's fund balance will need to be pledged to make the budget balance, Mrs. Roberts said.

Mrs. Roberts said $700,000 was cut from the first draft of the budget. Examples of some of those cuts included not replacing one-third of the teachers' computers at a cost of $55,900, reducing the athletic budget by $2,600 and forgoing replacing the phone system at the middle school and high school at a cost of $85,000.

No personnel cuts were made, said Superintendent Dr. Derry Stufft, although two summer maintenance positions normally taken by students will not be filled this year.

Timmerman said he felt more time was needed to discuss the budget before tentatively passing it, but Stufft reminded him that changes could be made 30 days after the adoption of the tentative budget.

Board Vice President David DeForest said he did not see any problem with passing the tentative budget on Monday. He also stressed that although the budget's expenditures outweigh its revenues, the district is not "in dire straits."

Next month's board meeting will be June 19, two days later than usual, to allow the tentative budget to be on display for 30 days.

In other business, the board voted unanimously to refinance two bond issues, one from 1993 and one from 1997, which were taken out to pay for renovations at the middle school and high school. The old rates on the bonds were 4.25 percent to 5.1 percent; the new rates are 1.889 percent to 3.950 percent.

The bonds, which total $6,165,000 together, will be paid off in 2009, Stufft said.