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FERRIDAY, La. — Concordia Parish School District is looking at a loss of about $1 million in competitive federal grants that it received last year but it will not get next academic year, Superintendent Toyua Bachus said.

School board members are considering creating a full-time Athletic Director position for the parish, which was discussed at a regular school board meeting on Thursday that took place at Ferriday Junior High School’s gymnasium. However, Bachus said with uncertainty about possibly more federal programs “still on the chopping block,” she could not recommend creating the position at this time.

The district has not had a full-time Athletic Director in the past decade.

The $1 million in lost funds comes from one-time grants that were not already budgeted; therefore, they do not create any more debt for the district, Buchus said.

However, they may result in loss of programs that supported students, such as hiring literacy coaches and support programs such as tutoring.

“We were ahead of the deadline on ESSER funds,” Bachus said, noting the district will get reimbursed for all of its federally funded projects in the COVID-19 relief package — unlike Natchez-Adams School District, which is looking at a $2.8 million deficit if the ESSER deadline extension is not honored.

Concordia Parish School Board had predicted it would have a $4.6 million deficit for the upcoming fiscal year, which, after amending its current budget, dropped to about $3.9 million, said CPSB business affairs director Tom O’Neal. The “lion’s share” of that is from borrowed funds for the Ferriday High School renovation, he said.

Federal programs were cut to schools all over Louisiana and the rest of the nation because they were funded to a lesser degree, Bachus said.

This includes “redesign funds for low-performance schools and funding for our literacy coaches was reduced from $450,000 to around $80,000,” Bachus said. “Comprehensive Literacy State Development grants, which just support literacy programs, last year were funded for 50 percent of parishes, and this year it was about 20 parishes and we got nothing this year. We put a lot of eggs into the basket of student literacy.”

During Thursday’s meeting, Bachus boasted on the continuous improvement of Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) scores, which are a measurement of students’ literacy skills in kindergarten through third grade.

Without the funding, Bachus said the district would have to look at other creative ways to replace those programs.

“There are so many uncertainties out there. I can’t make a recommendation (regarding an Athletic Director) with so many uncertainties out there,” she said. “I’d love to see that as an add-on position. Perhaps next year if these uncertainties don’t continue. We have to be frugal and we have to be gradual with our funding.”