Peekskill proposes $131.74 million 2025–26 budget with 1.5% tax-levy increase

Peekskill City School District finance staff on Tuesday presented a proposed $131,740,528 budget for the 2025–26 school year that would increase the district tax levy 1.5% and is projected to raise the average homeowner’s property tax bill by about $3.67 per month, or roughly $44.03 annually, on a home valued at about $400,000.

The proposal, presented by Assistant Superintendent for Business Cynthia Hawthorne and discussed by Superintendent Dr. Mauricio and board members, would raise total spending 7.06% from the current year. Hawthorne said the district expects roughly 50.57% of revenue to come from state aid and about 35% from the local tax levy; salaries and benefits make up the largest single cost at roughly 67.9% of the budget.

The budget summary emphasizes classroom programs and staffing. New or continued staffing and program requests in the proposal include: one full-time physical-education teacher for the middle/high school, a college-and-career school counselor to support P-TECH and Smart Scholars students, three elementary lunch monitors, and continued funding for after-school programs such as the Elton program. The presentation listed several one-time and recurring costs: an initial implementation year for the NWEA assessment suite at about $46,000 (assessment plus professional learning), $10,000 for a new middle/high-school French program subscription and teacher professional learning, and an estimated $140,000 cost to convert a current 0.6 FTE phys-ed allocation to a full-time position…