School taxes increase 2%

Taxpayers will pay 2 percent more in taxes under the 2025-26 budget approved by the Board of Education on May 1.

During a presentation on the budget, Superintendent Matthew Beck said an owner of the average home in Sparta, assessed at $372,200, will pay $175.89 more than last year for a total of $8,304.

The budget totals about $88.3 million with a local tax levy of about $73.2 million. Local taxes provide about 87 percent of the school district’s revenue.

The district expects to spend $21,501 per student in the 2025-26 school year compared with $21,019 this year.

Total enrollment is projected to be 3,277 this fall compared with 3,292 last fall.

Beck pointed out that the school board generally has raised taxes 2 percent a year for the past 10 years. That is the percentage permitted by state law without using banked cap or requiring voters to approve the budget.

The exception was a tax increase of 5.82 percent in the 2023-24 budget, when the board used banked cap, or unused tax levy authority carried over from one budget year to the next.

Business administrator Barbara Decker said banked cap is the result of an enrollment adjustment or a health-care adjustment. The board has nearly $1.4 million in banked cap but is not using it this year. If not used within three years, banked cap expires.

State aid rises

State aid for the district will increase $242,896, or 3.8 percent, to about $6.6 million in 2025-26.

“That was a nice surprise for the district. We were not anticipating that,” Decker said.

State aid provides about 8.5 percent of the district’s revenue.

The district expects to receive $771,454 in federal funds for the 2025-26 school year. That includes $673,010 for out-of-district tuition for disabled students.

The budget also includes about $3.4 million in state funds for preschool.

Decker said the district plans to use $604,095 from its capital reserve for energy-saving improvements and information technology upgrades and to use $396,260 from the maintenance reserve for various projects.

The amount appropriated for instruction is expected to rise 3.9% in 2025-25 from the current year. About 42 percent of the budget goes to instruction, 17 percent to employee benefits, 17 percent to operations and transportation, and 15 percent to support services and tuition.

The largest increases in appropriations are 11 percent for out-of-district tuition for special-education students as well as those going to charter and vocational schools and 8 percent for benefits.

Beck pointed out that the budget includes money for 250 iPads to replace Chromebooks at Alpine Elementary School, 550 Chromebooks for sixth- and ninth-graders, Promethean Boards for Alpine, Helen Morgan, Mohawk Avenue and the high school, a new piano for Helen Morgan, computer replacement for the Alpine sewer plant, and new accounting and personnel software for the district.

School board president Kaitlin Gagnon told Dana Gulino, a former board candidate who spoke during the public hearing on the budget, that the board also is concerned about students leaving the district.

”To bring some of those kids back I think would be great. If we could get even a portion of them, that would be beneficial to our budget,” Gulino said.

Becker said the district is moving to a school health insurance fund as of July 1. “The self-insured policy has really turned out to be very expensive and not cost-effective.”

Serving breakfast

Board member Roque Martinez pointed out that all the schools will be serving breakfast as well as lunch starting this fall.

Gaignon said, “I’m very, very proud of the fact that we were able to unanimously agree that offering breakfast in all buildings was a great move for our district.”

The board approved the resignations of Deniz Bilgutay, a high school English teacher; and Lauren Babcock and Amy Gluchoski, both special-education teachers at Alpine.

Board members approved the hiring of Erin Vreeland as a science teacher Sparta Middle School, Krista Constantine and Nicole Hartman as teachers at Helen Morgan, and Olivia Hogle as a preschool teacher at Alpine.

Other resolutions approved by the board:

• The creation of a Legal Studies & Law Club at Sparta High School. The adviser will be David DeCrescenzi.

• The opening an Emotional Regulation Impairment class at Sparta High School beginning July 1. The program will serve students who have intensive needs related to their disabilities.

• Setting the prices of lunch at the high school at $4.75, lunch at the middle school at $4.25, lunch at the elementary schools at $4, breakfast at the high school at $3.50, breakfast at the middle school at $3.25 and breakfast at the elementary schools at $3.

Board member Kurt Morris was absent from the meeting.