By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News

Pontiac District 429 is looking to figure out a way to keep their balanced budget balanced, as news comes in that they may not end up receiving state funding they were expecting.

Superintendent Brian Dukes was a guest on a recent community Forum, and he explained that payments for categoricals, which includes transportation and special education, may not be coming in to the district as promised.

“Those are programs and things we have to offer through the State. The special education side is very tricky, because the State is holding back our revenue, but we’re required to spend X amount of dollars at the Federal level, so it kind of turns into a double whammy, that we’re always trying to do our best and make sure we’re following regulations and most importantly, making sure we have the services our kids need. But the State of Illinois makes it very difficult at times to allow that to happen,” Dukes said.

Dukes also noted the news from Springfield after the stop-gap budget was approved was that ‘All schools are fully funded’ and that just isn’t true.