YORK, Maine – Keeping students and staff safe from COVID-19 hasn t been cheap. But unanticipated expenses aren’t the only financial curveballs complicating the York School Department s budgeting process. Local leaders have also been debating what to do with their unanticipated savings.
The school district made sure each student had their own computer to support the hybrid learning model, hired additional staff to meet educational needs related to COVID-19, and improved ventilation systems in school buildings, according to Superintendent Lou Goscinski. All of those big-ticket items and more fell outside the district s budget but were covered by federal coronavirus relief funds, without which the district would have been unable to make the needed safety-minded investments, Goscinski said.