The Douglas County Board of Education (BOE) Monday night approved a $194.6 million budget, which is down $6.3 million from last year, but does not include any employee layoffs.

The BOE heard a first reading of the budget at its June 1 meeting and the budget presented Monday was unchanged from the first presentation.

Kay Turner, school chief financial officer, said June 1 that the system was able to avoid layoffs by increasing student-teacher ratios, delaying purchase of technology and textbooks and not filling vacancies created by retirements and resignations.

“Our goal was to preserve people and programs, and I think we did a good job,” Turner told the June 1 meeting.

In another action, the BOE voted unanimously to raise the adult breakfast price from $1.40 to $1.60.

“The USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) requires us to price our adult meals based on the state calculated costs,” said Dudley Spruill, school system chief operating officer. “The cost now is $1.58, so we’re raising the price to reflect this new cost.”

In other BOE action, the board unanimously approved:

• purchase of calculators for Math II classes from low bidder D&H Distributing at a cost of $49,973;

• recognized Stacey Orr, Chapel Hill High marketing teacher, for winning the Georgia Marketing Teacher of the Year award from the Georgia Marketing Education Association;

• recognized Stewart Middle School student Christopher Johnson who won a Frank Ski Kids Foundation free summer art education trip to Florence, Italy;

• and noted special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) receipts for May were $2,333,712, up from $1,398,291.37 last month.