Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A new addition and tattered cabinets at Gemini Junior High will push new-furniture costs in East Maine District 63 to nearly $70,000 for the 1998-99 school year, officials said, more than twice the yearly average.

Included in the orders is $23,400 worth of new furniture to equip an addition to Nelson School, which will get four new classrooms and a common room to help ease a growing enrollment. Separately, the district will spend about $23,000 to replace and repair aged cabinets in Gemini’s home economics department and $20,180 to buy new furniture as needed.

The district averages about $30,000 in new purchases each year, keeping costs low by ordering early and recycling older pieces.