Mahopac board previews $145.5M 2025–26 budget; residents press to tap reserves to lower levy

The Mahopac Central School District on Tuesday presented the third community budget update for 2025–26 and defended a proposed $145,503,584 spending plan that would raise the budget-to-budget amount by 2.15% and the tax levy by 1.95%.

Superintendent Christine Tona introduced the presentation and said the board plans to consider adoption on April 22 after a finance committee line-by-line review on April 1. "Each month since December, we've been doing presentations for the community," she said, stressing that the presentation bundles transportation, safety, special education and curriculum requests.

Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Alyssa Murray told the board preliminary state-aid numbers are not final but showed a 3.46% increase in total preliminary state aid in the current slides and explained that the recommended levy of 1.95% is below the district's calculated allowable increase of 2.1%. "That 2.15 budget-to-budget increase is important to acknowledge," Murray said, adding that contractual obligations and special-education costs drive part of the increase.

Presenters walked through department requests. Leonor Volpi, the district's transportation supervisor, described a 12-year replacement plan for the 100-vehicle fleet and proposed buying 10 buses next year (seven 65-passenger, two 30-passenger and one wheelchair bus) to keep the fleet within Department of Transportation guidance on mileage and age. The safety and security lead summarized recent CRG mapping shared with first responders, pilot blast-mitigation window film, and planned lockdown-safety investments to be included in the budget.

The special-education team described in‑district expansions that reduced out-of-district placements and requested additional staff and related-service positions to offset vendor costs. Curriculum staff recommended new literacy materials for K–5 (Fundations for K–2 and a Zaner-Bloser grammar program for grades 3–5) and an ELL curriculum replacement pilot.

Several members of the public pressed the board to use reserve balances and recent sale proceeds to lower the proposed levy. "We currently have reserves of more than $27 million," said Lucy Massafra, a former board member, asking whether the district could use tax‑certiorari money, sale proceeds and other reserves to lower the levy. The superintendent and finance staff replied that some accounting is constrained by audit timing and prior appropriations and that final state-aid numbers and a full line-by-line finance committee review (April 1) will clarify how much the board could responsibly transfer without creating future shortfalls. "We have to plan for the future," the superintendent said, warning that repeated drawdowns of reserves can create fiscal stress in later years.

Board members and residents debated trade-offs: residents urged immediate relief to taxpayers, while trustees and administrators emphasized long-term obligations — special-education costs, contractual salary steps and possible future state mandates — that make reserve planning complex. Trustee comments pointed to the board's intention to present more detailed line-by-line figures at the April finance meeting and to defer final levy decisions until after the April state-aid run.

The board scheduled a finance‑committee session for April 1 to walk through expenditures in detail; the board is set to vote on the budget at the regular meeting on April 22.