BEATTY -- The Beatty Town Advisory Board broke with tradition and held its budget workshop during an adjournment of their regular meeting March 26.

In the past, the board has generally scheduled these workshops separately, and they have been sparsely attended by the public.

The board was faced with a request to cut the budget by as much as 20 percent because the state anticipates less tax revenue in the face the economy's current woes.

By the end of the workshop, however, it had managed slightly more than a 15 percent reduction.

While it cut some line items in the budget deeply -- reducing a couple to zero dollars -- the board felt compelled to increase a few, based on past expenditures or the rising cost of fuel and utilities.

During the regular meeting, the board granted $5,000 to the Beatty High School FCCLA program to help send members to the organization's national competition in Florida.

They also voted to spend $7,700 out of the room tax tourism and promotion fund to pay for a billboard in Lathrop Wells.