East Ramapo presents 2025–26 budget that boosts school spending while keeping tax levy flat

Interim Superintendent Anthony DeCaulo and Assistant Superintendent for Business Eric Stark presented the East Ramapo Central School District’s proposed 2025–26 budget and said the plan increases spending on instruction and capital needs while not raising the local tax levy. The district plans to put the budget before voters on May 20 and will hold a budget hearing on May 6 at the PLCC at the District Office.

DeCaulo said the budget “concentrates on the instruction of our students” and focuses on “turnaround leadership, talent development, instructional transformation, and cultural shifts.” He and Stark told the audience that recent increases in New York State aid and corrected coding of multilingual students allowed the district to add instructional resources and positions that had been reduced in prior years.

Stark explained how the district calculated revenue under New York State’s property tax cap framework, saying the maximum allowable tax levy calculation for 2025–26 is $167,000,000.93 — an increase of roughly $5.1 million, or 3.15% — but that the district is not using that maximum. “Without increasing the tax levy at all, we’re able to have an overall increase in the budget of $9,600,000,” Stark said, attributing the room to larger state aid and adjustments to other revenue and expense lines.

The presenters gave several specific changes and clarifications to the budget lines. Stark and DeCaulo said state aid to the district has risen substantially: aid rose from about $151 million to about $167 million for next year (an increase of roughly $16 million), and the district has seen about a $60 million increase in state aid over the past three years. They said the revenue mix has shifted: property taxes now represent about 46.7% of the district’s revenue while state aid is about 48.1%, reversing a prior three-year pattern in which property taxes formed the larger share.

On the expenditure side, the district reported that general-education spending shows a $5 million decrease largely because expenses previously recorded there have been reclassified into the multilingual education budget, which is up about $8 million after the recoding of multilingual learners. DeCaulo said the district’s multilingual population is large — he described it as “over 65% of our students” — and that correcting student coding increased foundation aid for the district.

The presenters also reported expense reductions and reclassifications that helped free capacity in the budget. Transportation costs were reduced by nearly $10 million after the district said prior budgets had been overestimated. Debt-service costs were reduced by roughly $2 million because the district avoided short-term borrowing (revenue anticipation notes) for summer payroll. At the same time, interfund transfers for capital and facility needs were increased by $4.7 million. Overall, the presenters said the changes allowed the district to increase educational program spending by “over $20,000,000” while keeping the tax levy unchanged.

Stark described the full-value school tax rate methodology used by the New York State Office of Real Property Tax Services and displayed comparative charts showing East Ramapo’s full-value rate is lower than other Rockland County districts (for example, East Ramapo’s 2024–25 full-value school tax rate shown was $9.86 per $1,000 of assessed value). DeCaulo and Stark emphasized that those comparisons were intended to show local tax burden relative to neighboring districts.

The presentation closed with a reminder to voters and a note from DeCaulo that the state reviewed and found the budget to be fiscally responsible. “We encourage you to get out and vote on May 20,” Stark said, and DeCaulo noted additional budget materials and presentations are available on the district homepage.

The board did not take a formal vote during this presentation; the public vote on the budget is scheduled for May 20 and a public budget hearing is scheduled for May 6 at the PLCC at the District Office.