SCCSD finance committee meets for discussions centered around millions in federal funding

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - Local school leaders debate the best ways to spend federal funding as they try to balance their budgets.

During the Feb. 6 meeting of the Sioux City Community School Board Finance & Facilities committee, discussions centered on budgeting for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

Committee members talked about ESSER funds, that’s COVID-19 pandemic relief money that was given to school districts. They talked about how they should allocate the Esser funds the district has left.

“Today we did an update on the ESSER funds, which is the COVID money that we received a total of $59 million, there’s a piece of $17 million that we are finalizing in 2023, and then $38 million that will be finalized in 2024,” said Dan Greenwell, the school board’s president.

Preliminary plans had the district under budget by nearly $440,000. After a discussion of how much money was budgeted for future signing bonuses, the committee decided to place that surplus into the signing bonus budget.

Greenwell acknowledged the importance of carefully examining how the money is spent.

”It’s taxpayer money and watching every dollar that we spend of taxpayer money is something I take very seriously. Yes we scrutinize the numbers very closely,” said Greenwell.

The budget has not received final approval from the school board.

The board will vote to approve or reject the budgets at an upcoming meeting.

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