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The school board has approved $1.3 million in capital outlay for the upcoming fiscal year.

Capital outlay projects for the 2012-2013 fiscal year will include a roof replacement at Sycamore Lane Middle School, payment of $300,000 toward debt incurred for new classrooms at Wagram Primary School, and the replacement of a chiller at Scotland High School.

Also approved as part of the 2012-2013 local current expense and capital outlay budgets were $1.7 million in fund balance appropriation to pay for 44 teaching position. Between appropriated fund balance and over $10 million in county appropriations, revenues for the 2012-2013 fiscal year total nearly $13 million.

Discretionary cuts from the state will total nearly $2.2 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

“It’s a reduction that comes down from the state,” Toland said. “There’s really no method to it, it allows us to send back money from any source that we choose.”

Superintendent Rick Stout explained a $312,000 increase in discretionary cuts as a continuation of a seven-year trend. “This has been going on for seven years now, and the very first year was supposed to be a one-time fix - we were supposed to have a discretionary cut for one year because we had a budget problem,” Stout said. “So, superintendents across the state agreed to have it for only one year. But they found that to be pretty nice to be able to have money given back to them each and every year - for seven years it’s added up to be a considerable amount of money in this county and across the state.”

The budgets were approved unanimously Monday after the board was briefed in April by finance officer Jay Toland.

In other business, the board awarded its May 2012 Key Player Award to Patti Baynes, a representative of Carolina College Advising Corps stationed at Scotland High School since August 2010.

During her tenure at the high school, Baynes established “College Central,” to increase students’ access to information about college and how to plan their classes to graduate college-ready.

Having completed her two-year stint in the advising program, Baynes will attend N.C. State University in the fall to pursue a Master of Education degree in Higher Education Administration.

The board also heard a report from Cindy Goodman, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, who said that End of Grade and End of Course testing will soon begin. Early End of Course tests administered at the Scotland Early College High program returned encouraging scores.

“On English I and Algebra I, our early college was 100 percent proficient - no retest involved, on the first administration,” said Goodman. “More than half the students achieved a Level 4, so we were thrilled with those results. This has just been a really positive partnership and arrangement to have those students, continuing to partner with RCC and partnering with St. Andrews as well. I think Mr. [SEarCH Principal Joe] Critcher is doing an outstanding job out there, and I’m really proud of the students and the teachers as well.”