Voorhees board adopts 2025–26 budget with 2% tax levy increase

The Voorhees Township Board of Education adopted its final 2025–26 budget after a public hearing, approving a total budget of about $73,000,006.79 and a 2% increase in the tax levy to help balance the district’s revenues and expenses.

Business administrator and board secretary Helen Haley presented the budget summary, saying the district’s total state aid for 2025–26 is $5,249,002.55 and that, despite an increase in formula funding, the district saw a real-dollar decline because a prior-year stabilization aid was not repeated. “From our standpoint in real dollars, we went down because we did not get the stabilization aid,” Haley said.

The nut graf: The board approved the advertised budget and the required reserve withdrawals to cover capital and maintenance needs while limiting near-term tax impact. The district is using $680,004.72 from capital reserve, $456,003.63 from maintenance reserve and $4,049 from emergency reserve; the board also applied a calculated fund-balance withdrawal to close the books for the prior year.

The board’s presentation laid out revenue and spending choices: local property taxes, which make up roughly 72.6% of revenue, state aid (about 16.1%), and limited use of reserves. Haley said the net general-fund balance is down $635,001.42 from the prior year; to fund operations and capital needs the board increased the tax levy by 2%, an increase Haley quantified on average homes as roughly $82.52 annually ($6.87 per month). She also noted that district ratables rose modestly—about $1.86 million, or roughly 0.6 percent—so the effective taxpayer change is about 1.93%.

The advertised budget and required statements were read into the record, including the purpose for the capital-reserve withdrawal: $680,004.72 is budgeted for facility work “such as installation of security cameras and systems for $83,000, door hardware security enhancements $475,000, and a playground upgrade of $122,004.72,” Haley read from the published statement. Haley also explained limits on reserve use: emergency reserve may be used only for health-care increases and security items; maintenance reserve for required maintenance; and capital reserve only for long-term projects.

A resident asked for line-item detail and questioned whether door hardware purchases required wholesale door replacements; Haley said an advertised budget lists appropriation lines and that a user-friendly budget would be posted the next day. She explained that some door replacements occurred after a security review recommended changes to locks and configurations and that some locks were replaced without replacing doors to expedite the security rollout. “You can’t do it all in one year because the money’s not there,” Haley said.

The board opened the public hearing, took public comment, closed the hearing and then moved to adopt the final budget. The motion to adopt passed by voice vote with the board president calling the vote and the online tally recorded as unanimous.

Ending: The adopted budget includes reserved funds for listed capital projects and maintains a policy of a modest 2% levy increase; administrators said they will publish a user-friendly budget and additional detail on reserve uses after the meeting.