No property tax increases and no staff layoffs will be required by the Vicksburg Warren School District’s proposed budget for 2011-12, the district’s financial director Dale McClung said Thurday night.

At just more than $82.8 million, the budget will increase spending by about $2.8 million over 20-2011. The plan was presented at a public hearing just before the board’s regular business meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Duran Swinford said the budget meets the general needs of the district’s nearly 9,000 students but also targets special education and her “accelerated program for transition,” or APT, which aims to help over-age students master course work and catch up.

“We want to continue expanding those services for middle school students and those in the junior high, before they get to high school and could become dropouts,” Swinford said. “We’re really treating this program and the budget in a way that it will target special needs children.”

Supplemental money to fund the program, which trustees approved in October, is hoped to come from a grant and some federal sources, Swinford said.

Swinford won board approval for her APT initiative in October, and administrators have identified about 500 students to participate in the coming school year.

She said in an interview after the board’s regular meeting that an assigned period of “sustained silent reading” — an hour to an hour and a half daily — would be required in all classes in the coming year.