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Carmel board adopts 2024-25 budget with 0% tax-levy after heated debate over numbers and cuts
Summary
After more than six hours of testimony and late-night debate over line-item accuracy, the Carmel Central School District Board of Education approved a $141,773,966 budget for 2024–25 and set the proposed tax levy at $101,399,438 — a 0% increase — directing administration to preserve programs while finding savings elsewhere.
The Carmel Central School District Board of Education voted 4–3 on April 24 to adopt a $141,773,966 spending plan for the 2024–25 school year and hold the district—s proposed tax levy at $101,399,438, a 0% increase from the prior year.
The vote followed an unusually long meeting in which trustees, administrators and dozens of public speakers pressed for clearer line-item accounting while debating multiple budget scenarios that ranged from a 1.34% levy with targeted cuts to a near-0% scenario that would require deep program reductions. Trustee John Curzio, who seconded the motion to set the 0% levy, argued the board could not approve an increase without confidence in the numbers backing it. "The school district's rate of spending and taxing is unsustainable," Curzio said during debate.
Why it matters: Trustees and members of the public said repeated…
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