NILES — School officials are asking the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of School Finance for an extension in submitting a fiscal recovery plan.

School Superintendent Ann Marie Thigpen announced at Thursday’s board meeting that since the schools are in ”fiscal caution,” the district is required by the state to submit a plan to save money and reduce costs.

Originally, the plan was to be submitted by Nov. 27, but Thigpen and School Treasurer Linda Molinaro sent a letter Thursday to Columbus asking for an extension to allow the district’s administrative team to meet and talk about what the district could do that will not negatively impact the students.

”We did not want to put together a plan that we felt we could not institute,” Thigpen said.

Officials also want to meet and share information with district union officials.

Thigpen said Niles school officials would like to meet later this month or in December with representatives of the Ohio Department of Finance “to talk in depth about fiscal caution, which Niles is in, and fiscal emergency, which would be the worst that can happen and also fiscal watch.”

Officials hope to receive word within the next seven working days if the extension is acceptable.

Thigpen said Molinaro has reviewed the district’s finances and projects a $1.4 million deficit for the 2018-19 school year.

Contributing to the deficit is the defeat earlier this month of a 9.25-mill emergency levy that 70 percent of the district’s voters opposed. The levy failed by a vote of 2,986 against and 1,277 for, according to unofficial results from the Trumbull County Board of Elections.

Thigpen said the district has seen an enrollment decrease and lost $340,000 in federal funds for Title I programs. There also was a loss of $191,000 in funding for the 2016-17 school year, which is the equivalent of 2.5 teachers’ salaries, and to keep that staff, it has to be supplemented from money in the general fund.

”We want to enhance our education and continue offering positive things for our students,” she said.

Niles was under a state-mandated fiscal watch from 2003 to 2016 and was just recently put back under fiscal caution.

Thigpen said previously the district plans to put the levy back on the May primary ballot. Money generated from the levy would help address the deficit.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the varsity baseball team’s field trip to the Ripkin Experience in Myrtle Beach during spring break April 2 to 8;

• Approved a joint agreement appointing the Business Advisory Council of the Trumbull County Educational Service Center to serve as the business advisory council for the school district;

• Scheduled the next regular meeting for 6 p.m. Dec. 19 at the high school.

bcoupland@tribtoday.com