By Christian Coffman

NATCHEZ — The Natchez-Adams School District reportedly saved more than $200,000 in substitute teacher costs in the 2016-2017 school year.

Superintendent Fred Butcher told the Natchez-Adams School Board Tuesday at its regular meeting that the cost of substitutes during the 2015-16 school year was $510,581.01. This school year’s total paid for substitutes was $293,595.97, he said.

The total difference in cost between the two school years came to $216,985.04.

“This year we’ve made progress — progress that we want to make,” Butcher said.

The superintendent said much of the costs savings came from coordinating with schools to better determine where cuts in substitute teacher costs could to be made.

“It cut down on the number of teacher absences, so we had a lot more money coming into our new budget,” Butcher said.

Butcher told the board that he would like to see that number decrease even further next year, to save even more and that some policies would need to be changed .

“For some reason, the teachers will call in during testing time … we’ve got to find some way to work through that, or work around that,” he said.

Butcher said he would get with the board’s attorney in order to figure out a way to reduce the teacher absences during testing time.