MCS Budget Vote Tuesday, Noon to 9pm - $25.1M Budget, Taxes up 1.5%

By David Avitabile

MIDDLEBURGH - Middleburgh Central School residents will vote on a $25.1 million budget for 2025-26 that will increase the tax levy by 1.5 percent Tuesday from noon to 9pm in the high school gym lobby.

When the school board adopted the spending plan in April, officials noted that MCS has the lowest tax increase in the area for the second year in a row.

In March, board members faced a budget gap of $277,000 and agreed to eliminate the gap by reducing spending and using funds from two reserves. To eliminate the rest of the budget gap, the district used about $65,000 from the Employee Retirement System and $100,000 from the Teachers Retirement System.

Spending was reduced to $25.1 million and funds from the TRS and the ERS to eliminate the gap.

The final spending plan is $200,000 or 0.8 percent more than the current budget.

If there is additional state aid for the district, officials could reduce the amount of reserve funding by the amount of the additional Foundation aid.

Currently, state aid revenue for the district stands at $12.7 million, down $107,000 or 0.84 percent from this year. There are talks in the state legislatures to increase state aid by three percent.

Officials originally had been looking at a rollover budget that totaled $25.46 million, about $556,000 or 2.33 percent more than the current budget.