NORWICH - On Wednesday, May 27 the Norwich City School Board of Education held a review of the proposed 2020-2021 school budget followed by a public hearing.

The three-part budget is broken into administration expenses, program expenses, and capital expenses. The proposed expenditures are $5,498,383 for administrative costs, $28,868,590 for program costs, and $7,019,131 for the capital costs. The majority of the budget, 70.16 percent, will go towards program costs that will bring money back to the school.

According to the board, when looking at this year’s budget compared to last year’s, many of the variances come from classification issues. Many funds were allocated incorrectly causing errors in the budget. For example universal pre-k was budgeted in the general funding in the prior year; funding for UPK actually comes from federal funds.

The district has made several changes to programs within all three schools to bring back students who were attending classes in alternative schools.