NORWICH – During Thursday night’s Norwich City School Board of Education meeting, Interim Superintendent Diana Bowers said the school needed to take a $3.5 million loan to cover costs due to a lack of funds.

The Norwich Board of Education took the unprecedented action of taking out a loan to cover expenses. Bowers said the school had first thought it would need a $5 million loan. Though the district decided to only borrowed $3.5 million, the superintendent said the district may have to borrow more sometime in 2020 to meet further costs.

“What we need to do, as we get close [to the end of the year], is to look at the cash flow issues to see if we have to just take another one, which maybe, hopefully not,” said Bowers

In January of 2019 New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli announced Norwich was one of 26 school districts in the state that are significantly fiscally stressed. At the time the report stated the school to have a fiscal score of 70.0, along with four other districts in the state. The comptroller’s office said the report was based on financial reports submitted at the end of 2018.