In a letter to Education Minister Eva Slavkovska, Finance Minister Miroslav Maxon eased spending cuts for the educational sector. He reduced the 8% budget freeze on spending for universities to 4%. This means universities can draw their 1998 budget at 96% of the planned volume, Jozef Mach of the Finance Ministry's PR Department informed journalists on October 27.
At the same time, Maxon reduced the freeze for schools under the administration of regional offices from 8 to 4%. In Mach's words, this means releasing about 340 million Sk ($9.4 million) from the state budget for these schools.
The Finance Ministry also completely abandoned planned spending cuts for commuter bus operator SAD, satisfying an application by representatives of the Bus Transport Association (ZAD) who had warned that regular bus transport in Slovakia would collapse as a consequence of lack of money in the last quarter of 1998.
