NORWICH – The Norwich City School District is facing an additional $374,000 loss in aid, following the release of the revised New York State budget in the wake of the COVID-19 health crisis.

The new losses mean the school district is now looking at almost a million dollar budget gap.

The school's Interim Superintendent Diana Bowers, recently released a letter to the community explaining the school's budget situation.

An excerpt from the letter states:

“After a minimal aid increase of 1.3 percent in the governor’s run, we anticipated an increase in the second Legislative budget run that would help us close a $600,000 gap. We had hoped that some, if not all of the money necessary would be added to our State aid when our second budget run came to the district.

“This, unfortunately, did not happen. When the Legislative run came out right before the April 1st deadline, our State aid was cut to a level that brought our funding in the 20-21 school year to less that the funding in the 19-20 school year.

“We lost an additional $374,000 which brought the gap to close to a million dollars less than what was presently in the budget. At that point, we began pouring over the budget looking for ways to trim the budget without having a devastating effect on our students’ education and our staff. We considered many options in the budget process to close the gap.”