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Wappingers board approves 2025–26 tax rates and authorizes certification of $192.7 million in school taxes
Summary
The board set the district's 2025–26 true value tax rate at $14.05, authorized the district clerk to certify school taxes totaling $192,710,755 (less STAR reimbursement) to town fiscal officers, and approved tax collection dates.
At the Aug. 13 meeting the Wappingers Central School District Board of Education approved the 2025–26 school tax rates and authorized the district clerk to certify school taxes to the fiscal officers of the towns that comprise the district.
Business office presenter Miss Dainty explained the three factors that determine school tax rates—assessments, New York State equalization rates and the district’s tax levy—and reviewed finalized equalization rates for the district’s municipalities. She said the tax levy (the dollar amount raised) is subject to the state tax‑levy cap, while tax rates and individual bills are not. In her presentation she noted the district is roughly in the middle of the county on tax rates and reviewed homestead and non‑homestead trends.
Miss Dainty told the board how assessments, clerical/firefighter exemptions and final town assessment submissions affect the calculations. “There are 3 factors that go into school tax rate calculations. The first are assessments … We also have equalization rates … and the tax levy, that’s the final piece,” she said. She also said the district’s taxpayers saw small average changes and that the district remained under the levy cap.
The formal resolution authorized the district clerk to certify taxes in the total sum of $192,710,755, less the STAR reimbursement, and set the district true value tax rate at $14.05 per $1,000 of assessed value. The resolution also set the regular collection period as Sept. 15, 2025 through Oct. 14, 2025, with a 2% penalty period from Oct. 15–31, 2025. By unanimous vote (motion by Trustee Odom; second Trustee Lumia), the board approved the tax rates and related certifications.
Miss Dainty also earlier observed that, by some measures, the district’s comparative true tax rate was $13.21 and that the district sits near the county median; the board nonetheless approved the $14.05 true value tax rate in the formal resolution submitted at the meeting.
The board recorded no amendments to the levy at the meeting; officials said printed tax bills and STAR calculations will be processed by the towns and that STAR adjustments are handled after bills are printed.
