The Sachem School District has until Saturday to decide if shutting down a school could be a solution to its budget shortfall.

Merrimac Elementary School is the school the district is targeting. It is one of several ideas discussed at Wednesday night's board of education meeting.

Others include merging JV and varsity sports teams from Sachem North and Sachem East to form one team per sport for the entire district rather than each high school having its own team, increasing the elementary class size by two students, and eliminating certain late buses as well as combined middle school sports.

The gap is $1.8 million — and could be as much as $6.5 million — when factoring in things like extracurriculars, clubs and sports.

“We are $1.8M short just by what we are required to do by the state so, to me, we are insufficiently funded by the state mechanisms right now and that’s even using our leftover funds,” said Trustee Michael Isernia.

“If we were to close an elementary school we would have a savings of approximately $2 million for the closure, and if we were able to rent that building out to another entity, we could recognize approximately $600,000 in recurring revenue,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations Michele Psarakis.

The district is required to notify the state by March 1 if they are considering the closure of a school.

“What happened last night was outrageous. As a matter of fact, there’s a school policy that requires community input when you’re going to close a school, so what did the board do? They suspended the policy at the last second. The community has no knowledge that Merrimac was being chosen,” said Jim Kiernan, a former school board president.

The Superintendent Patricia Trombetta released a statement that says:

"The district is currently facing a challenging budget season and is working to identify ways in which to close the financial deficit it is experiencing. In order to address this deficit, the district is reviewing several options, which may include the closure of a building. Accordingly, the district must notify the State by March 1st if they anticipate the closing of a building. This allows the district to have the option in the event we need to close a building. However, no decisions are definitive until the final budget is adopted. This is just one option of many that we are exploring as we continue to address the budget shortfall. "

Watch the board of education meeting in the video below: