CATO - The Cato-Meridian Central School District will not be forced to endure another year of a cash-strapped contignecy budget.

The $15.6-million school budget, which carries a 7.87 tax levy increase, easily passed Tuesday 729-488. A proposition to spend $203,977 for three buses also passed.

"We're very happy and very relieved," district superintendent Deborah Bobo said.

School board president Margaret Meccariello was ousted from the board and three newcomers were elected.

Dean Cummins, a local auctioneer and Realtor with previous school board experience, garnered the most votes, with 646. He was followed by Heidi Dennison, the Cato-Meridian Sports Booster Club president who led the effort to raise money to continue the school's sports programs after the budget failed last year. Dennison and Cummins will serve five-year terms.

Roxanne Miller was third, with 597 votes and will serve a one-year term.

Miller was part of a lawsuit against the district which contended cutting sports and extra-curricular activities in last year's contingency budget was illegal. The district won the lawsuit.

Cummins would like to see a proposition to reduce the term of school board office to three years instead of five. He said a shorter term would interest more business people in running.

"If they were doing a good job, they could be re-elected, and if they weren't, you wouldn't be stuck with them," he said.

For the past year, the district has been operating under a contingency budget of $13.4 million that was put in place after the district's proposed budget was voted down twice. Initially, the new budget for 2005-06 carried an 8.58 percent tax levy increase, but the board reallocated some funds in April and brought down the levy.

The $2,234,281 increase in the overall budget will allow six teaching positions to be filled, all sports and extra-curricular activities to be reinstated and an increase in non-instructional support staff.