Moon Area school directors Monday night became the seventh school board among 12 member districts to approve the three-part Parkway West Career and Technology Center budget for the school year starting July 1.

With their 6-3 vote, Moon directors also became the first board to cast negative votes for the spending plan.

Jack Highfield, director of the North Fayette career center and alternative school, said that as of Tuesday, the total vote among the seven boards was 54 "yes" and 3 "no." Five more boards must vote.

Parkway West provides vocational training for 12 school districts in the western, southern and northern suburbs, and also offers an alternative school.

For its budget to be approved, it needs approval from eight of the districts and 55 of the 108 total board members.

Moon board member Michael Nagy voted against the budget because it includes administrative raises. Jerry Testa said the size of the number was a surprise to him. Sandra McCurdy said she voted "no" because of the way Moon accounts for refunds coming back from the school.

Those three are all new board members, elected in November and seated in December. Mr. Highfield said the budget was different from the budgets of regular schools, and that it often takes new board members a while to understand it.

The overall budget was presented in three segments.

The alternative school budget is $1.03 million. Its costs jumped 20 percent because a grant program to help disruptive youth -- which accounted for almost $80,000 of the school's revenue -- was cut from the state budget.

There also was a 20 percent increase in the building rental budget. The school is saving for a $1.3 million roofing project in 2013. Parkway West cannot borrow construction money the way school districts do.

"It's been leaking for several years, and we have to pay to repair it every year," Mr. Highfield said.

But the building budget is only $380,000, he said.

The largest budget segment is the one for the career and technology center, which teaches everything from hairdressing to computer graphics to auto mechanics. It is a $5.7 million item, and Mr. Highfield said it went up only 2.9 percent, primarily due to contractual raises.

Mr. Highfield said the three budgets were divvied up differently. The building rental cost is spread among the 12 member school districts based on the total district enrollment, no matter how many children each district sends to the school.

The budgets for the career and technology center and the alternative school are divided up according to how many children attend from each district.

Mr. Highfield noted that the more students there are at the school, the more efficient it is. "The best way to reduce per-student costs is for enrollment to go up," he said.

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