With diesel fuel prices stubbornly above $4 a gallon, the state will probably need more money than it budgeted in the fiscal year that begins July 1 to keep school bus tanks filled for the entire school year.

"I expect they'll probably be running a deficit next year unless they find money from other accounts," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Cooper said Thursday after the House approved final amendments to the spending plan. Differences between the House and Senate now will be resolved in a conference committee.

Because the House and Senate have agreed to spend just $21 million to cover higher fuel costs, that's locked into the budget and can't change unless the two chambers approve more with a two-thirds vote.

The Education Department had asked for $9 million more and says the meter is spinning on diesel costs. Every 8 cent increase adds $1 million to the deficit, agency spokesman Jim Foster said. Next year, "we're confident the General Assembly will give us an emergency appropriation and will not allow the buses to stop running."

Foster says there are no plans now to park buses or pack more students on them.

It's not the only bad news in the budget for public schools after economic forecasts last month showed the state's tax collections slowing. That forced the Senate to cut $180 million from the budget, with half of that in a reserve fund typically used for one-time spending programs.

Meanwhile, the slowing economy and the state's elimination of the sales taxes on groceries are slicing about $60 million from Education Improvement Act programs. That includes $30 million schools lose in the current fiscal year that they'll have to take out of spending next year, when they'll lose another $30 million.

Those cuts affect a variety of programs. For instance, the House agreed to take $2.1 million of the $33.8 million set aside for gifted and talented programs and $1.2 million from a $19.4 million testing program.

While the cuts don't affect salaries, school districts are going to have to decide how they'll make up the differences, said Scott Price, a lobbyist for the South Carolina School Boards Association. "I get the sense that they're hunkering down."

Cooper says it's not all bad for education. After all, he notes, public schools pick up $95 million in money tied to a state formula that sets minimum per-student spending.

And it could have been worse.

House Minority Leader Harry Ott said Democrats had a victory in keeping the House from increasing spending for college research projects by cutting $10 million from K-5 education programs.

The House had originally set aside $30 million in grants for endowed college research programs at Clemson University, the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina. The Senate cut that to $10 million and the House, under pressure from Democrats, went along.

"We thought that that was not a good use of dollars. Obviously if you're going to spend money, early childhood education is the most important. I thought it was much more important for us to continue early childhood education programs than it was to put $10 million more into the endowed chairs," Ott said. That was particularly true after the Education Improvement Act programs lost money.