Bennington Public Schools board adopts 2025'26 budget, sets property tax request

The Bennington Public Schools Board on Monday approved the district's 2025'26 full-year NDE budget and adopted a property tax request resolving how much tax revenue the district will seek for the coming year.

Doctor Ploss, presenting the budget, said the NDE-format budget shows a headline increase "just over 56%," a distortion he attributed to bond proceeds placed in the special building fund following a March bond vote. He told the board the district's "total budget request is 140,138,659" and that the general (operating) fund growth is modest at about 3.84 percent. He added the district expects actual expenditure growth of roughly 2.7 percent if assumptions hold.

The presentation also described the district's proposed fund-level tax asking. Dr. Ploss reported the general fund tax asking as $30,180,107, the bond fund at $11,074,216 and the special building fund at $774,054. He said the bond fund levy will remain at 35.8 cents and the district currently projects about a 0.5 percent surplus (approximately $300,000) for the fiscal year under those assumptions.

Board members moved and seconded the budget and then the property tax request resolution; roll-call votes were taken and the motions passed unanimously. The motion to adopt the full-year (NDE) budget passed first, followed by adoption of the property tax request resolution.

The board also publicly thanked Titus Ortiz, coordinator of business services, for the months-long work preparing the MBE/NDE budget.

The board did not record any amendments to the budget or conditional provisions in the motions; the amounts adopted in the motion text were treated as the board's final vote.

What happens next: the adopted property tax request will be filed consistent with state requirements and the district will return to the board with any updates as revenues and final tax valuations are known.