East Ramapo board reviews preliminary 2025–26 budget; staff cite coding corrections, staffing shortfalls and proposed capital transfers

The East Ramapo Central School District Board of Education received a preliminary presentation of the 2025–26 revenue and expenditure budget at its meeting. Assistant Superintendent for Business Mr. Stark told the board the district has reclassified a number of expenses that were previously miscoded, updated pension and debt-service encumbrances for the current year, and built an initial draft for the coming fiscal year that includes new staffing requests and capital transfers funded partly from reserves.

Mr. Stark said the district’s January 31 expenditure report now includes salary increases from the recently settled teachers’ contract and employer contributions to the two pension systems (ERS and TRS) that had not been fully encumbered in earlier reports. He told trustees the report’s projected expenses “include all amounts from the general fund that have been expensed or encumbered through 01/31/2024.” He also said the transportation line is projecting a roughly $15,000,000 surplus for the current year because the district budgeted about $72,000,000 for transportation but now projects spending around $57,000,000.

On revenue, the administration presented an updated aid and levy calculation. Mr. Stark described the state-required tax-cap computation using the prior-year levy ($162,800,000), the tax-base growth factor supplied by the New York State…