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RALEIGH - State Board of Education members received an update about Race to the Top initiatives Thursday. North Carolina was one of a handful of states awarded Race to the Top funds from the federal program last fall.

But, school leaders are finding out the $400 million comes with a lot of opportunities and a just as many challenges.

"I know. I didn't think it would be this much when we started talking about getting $400 million,” said State Board of Education Chair William Harrison. “The work itself is monumental, and you add to that the reporting, which is reporting like I've never seen before."

Administrators have had to delay some of the state initiatives thanks in part to a long list of administrative requirements to put plans into action.

"Since the application was approved in January of this year, as we've come up with some more specific implementation plans, we've foreseen some changes on how we want to do things. Not the scope, not the ultimate goals but how we want to achieve those," said Adam Levinson, Policy and Strategic Planning Director at the Department of Public Instruction.

Education officials say the state's own dwindling budget has made reporting, monitoring and other federal requirements tougher than expected.

"It's just a challenge with shrinking staff in the department to make sure we have enough people in place to process the paperwork," Levinson said.

Still, planning for initiatives like common core standards, new data systems and blended and virtual schools is moving forward.

State education officials have also been busy working on preparing local districts for initiatives heading their way. Officials say they believe it will be worth it.

"It is $400 million to help local initiatives, state initiatives that we wouldn't have had otherwise or certainly that we would have been able to move forward with as quickly or maybe as deeply," Levinson said.