Sidney School District battling deficit

SIDNEY -- Sidney School District Superintendent Andrew Farber recently announced the District is facing a deficit of a projected $600,000, due to a loss in state aid. 

As of February, Farber indicated the District‘s current certification is a loss of more than $600,000. 

"Currently, the district has engaged in the process of planning and looking at potential budgetary adjustments to address our loss in State aid," he said.

Farber said they are reviewing everything in the District, and working to stay as far away from the classroom as possible. He said this year, the District was facing a $250,000 loss in state aid. To counter that, Sidney  Public Schools has worked to cut  1 to 3 percent in discretionary spending  each month, since the start of the current  school year.  Farber indicated his gratitude to the staff and administration for their help in making that happen. 

"As a District, we've been able to recoup those dollars this year just by watching our spending. The problem is, you can only do that once. We will no longer have access to those funds. So now we have to work through a thoughtful process of figuring out what we're going to do moving forward," he said.

Farber said sorting out the budget and defining shortfalls is not over.

"We'll know more in March, and possibly again in June. The Board engaged in a work session, last Wednesday and came up with a potential plan that includes making adjustments to District spending, and then also a reasonable access to taxes. Again, our goal is to be good stewards of District dollars, so we don't necessarily want to ask for an innate amount of tax dollars if we can make some adjustments internally," he said.

The district intends to work on this challenge over the next few months, potentially producing a solution that maintains the excellent student first culture of Sidney Public Schools.