During the first months of this school year, Oak Harbor School District didn’t know exactly how much it would receive in Federal Impact Aid.

That question was cleared up last week when the district received $4.24 million in Federal Impact Aid. That figure is $205,000 less than anticipated.

When officials were sorting out the school district’s budget last summer, they estimated what the district would receive in funding. They budgeted $4.45 million in Impact Aid for this year.

Superintendent Rick Schulte said that even though the reduction hurts funding, it isn’t as bad as originally thought. Some worst-case estimates anticipated a $1 million reduction.

Federal Impact Aid is doled out to school districts that are affected by military bases, American Indian reservations and federal low-income housing programs.

Schulte said some school districts in the country can be late with funding requests and government apportions funding to guarantee every eligible school district receives money. Once that is accomplished, then any extra is dispersed.

“It sounds a bit goofy and it is a bit goofy, but we understand it enough to know what to expect,” Schulte said. The Oak Harbor district is anticipating another payment of $750,000 later in the school year.

Should that payment be lower than expected, the school district has contingencies written into its budget to deal with reductions.

These deal with maintenance items, technology and instructional materials purchases.