RALEIGH - Rosa Gill survived a palace coup Tuesday as Wake school board members complained about getting $36 million less than they had wanted from county commissioners.

School board members warned they'd have to make cuts that could hurt students and employees and not offer much for anticipated new programs. The school board adopted an interim budget to pay the bills and agreed to meet Monday to discuss what cuts to make.

They'll wage their fight with commissioners with Gill as their chairwoman. Amid behind-the-scenes negotiations over who should be the leader, Gill was unanimously re-elected to another one year-term.

"I explained to them why I wanted to be chairwoman," Gill said. "I was surprised it was unanimous."

But the most heated discussions Tuesday were over the gap between what the board had requested and what the county provided in a budget approved Monday night.

"This shows a lack of commitment to education in Wake County," said Kevin Hill, who was elected the new board vice chairman. "We're going backwards. Make no mistake about it."

Citing the slowing economy, the commissioners voted Monday to give the school board $319.2 million for the coming fiscal year. The school board had requested $355.5 million.

"It seemed that was the level of funding that we could agree upon," said Joe Bryan, chairman of the board of commissioners.

Without full funding, school board members complained, they wouldn't be able to go ahead with things such as expanding services for academically gifted students and offering foreign language at every elementary school.

Other things that will likely be dropped now include hiring more special education teachers to reduce class sizes and putting more officers on high school campuses to deter gangs.

"How can we not pay for our children to have a first-class education in Wake County?" said school board member Lori Millberg.

In addition to providing less than what the school board had requested, the commissioners put other strings on the money.

Commissioners budgeted the money into 18 categories. The school board would need permission from the commissioners to change any category by more than 15 percent.

Previously, the commissioners had only given the money by a lump sum.

Additionally, the commissioners are withholding $3 million of the $319.2 million. The school district will get the money only if this fall's student enrollment meets projections.

School board members complained they weren't even getting enough money to keep up with growth and inflation. They also questioned whether they can go ahead with a plan to develop a new funding formula.

The Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Wake Education Partnership had proposed that both boards develop a multiyear funding formula to provide more money for education in return for turning over school construction to the county.

Bryan said school board members need to step back from this year's budget fight consider the long-term advantages of a deal.

But school board members seem to be more skeptical now.

"From what we see in this budget, the county commissioners are interested in continuing to discuss and talk about it but there's no good faith in the funding part of it," said school board member Horace Tart.