Board briefed on proposed 2025–26 budget at tax‑cap level, capital project impacts and bus electrification plans

Superintendent Matt Landau and senior staff told the Beacon City School District Board on March 24 that the district’s preliminary 2025–26 budget proposal is set at the tax cap (a 5.15% levy increase) and that the proposed budget includes the first year of tax impact from a previously announced capital project that will fund infrastructure and programmatic improvements across the district.

Landau and district finance staff said the preliminary budget total discussed was about $86,000,000 and that the year‑to‑year budget‑to‑budget increase under discussion is approximately 3.6 percent. They said three cost categories — salaries (about $45 million), benefits (about $25 million) and debt service (about $6.6 million) — represent the largest shares of spending and together account for roughly 88.5 percent of the budget.

The presentation outlined how a lower levy would change revenue: reducing the levy to 4.68% would yield roughly $225,000 less revenue, and reducing it to 4.15% would yield about $475,000 less, the staff said. Landau described the district’s history of presenting budgets at the tax cap in recent years and said the administration…