SAXONBURG — The South Butler School District may have to borrow money in 2018 if it does not receive state funding on time.

District director of business affairs Paul Slomer advised the school board at Wednesday's board meeting that there are no scheduled payments to the district from the state Department of Education for October.

The district receives money annually from the state, and is slated to receive $15 million from the state for the 2017-18 fiscal year, which is a little more than 40 percent of its $36 million budget.

Slomer said that the district received the $2.6 million it was scheduled to receive so far in this fiscal year, which began July 1 and runs to June 30, 2018.

However, the $1.3 million the district is supposed to receive from the state this month had not been scheduled for payment as of Wednesday evening.

Slomer told the board that without any more payments from the state, the district will run out of budgeted money by the end of February or early March of 2018.

“We will have exhausted all of our local real estate revenue, and any state funding that we have received so far,” Slomer said.

Slomer also noted that the state's overall budget is facing a $2.2 billion deficit.

District solicitor Tom Breth said borrowing money from a financial institution would be unprecedented for the district.

“It's really a tribute to how (the district) manages its fiscal years, and do it in a very responsible way so that if a situation like this arises, they have more than one option,” Breth said.

However, he also acknowledged that the district may have to borrow money this time around.

“History tells us that districts have not been fully funded from time to time,” Breth said.

The last time the district did not receive its money on time was during the 2015-16 fiscal year, when the lack of a state budget caused a delay in payment from the state to the district until January 2016.