School budget season is underway in New York, with districts facing a May 19 deadline to put their budgets up for a vote. But rising costs and uncertain revenue streams are squeezing some school districts into a tight financial spot.
Radio Catskill spoke with David Albert, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at the New York State School Boards Association – which serves more than 600 local school boards and BOCES across the state – about what school districts are up against this budget cycle.
What is the school budget process?
School budgets set how much a school district will spend during a school year and on what. It includes major funding for components like transportation, sports programs, student academics, and school lunches. It also includes a proposed tax levy of taxable real property, often one of the biggest sources of revenue for local school districts.
While residents will vote on their school budgets in May, Albert says the process starts several months before.
“It’s a very public process. Basically, boards will start working on their school district budgets sometime around maybe November [or] December of the previous year, and it carries over into January [or] February, which is when they really get into budget development,” said Albert.
By the end of April, many school boards have adopted the budget, so that school boards can make the case to voters to pass the budget.
May 19 is the deadline for school districts in New York to vote on a school budget. June 30 is the school budget deadline for school districts in Pennsylvania.
What challenges are school districts facing this year?
Rising health insurance costs are driving expenditure costs up for many school districts, says Albert. “Health insurance always tends to be a big-ticket item for school districts,” he adds.
While utilities don’t compose a large part of a school district’s budget, says Albert, utility costs are noticeably rising and affecting the overall budget.
Increasing program costs are also shaping many school budgets this year. More students qualify for special education services, and those programs can often be more expensive due to additional specialized services and staffing needed.
Meanwhile, most school districts still only have about three major sources of revenue: local funding through property taxes, state aid, and federal funding.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has not yet passed a state budget, missing the April 1 deadline. That’s made it harder for some school districts to estimate how much state aid they’ll receive.
Education advocates and lawmakers have also long advocated that how the state calculates its foundation aid formula is outdated and doesn’t account for district support for English language learners and homeless students.
“As schools are putting their budgets together, they’re estimating what they may get in state aid because they don’t know for sure,” said Albert. “Sometimes this causes districts to be a little bit on the conservative side because they don’t want to overestimate and then have a revenue gap.”
Who is eligible to vote in a school budget vote?
New York state law says that to vote in the school budget and board of education vote, a person must be a U.S. citizen, 18 years or older, and a resident of the school district for at least 30 days.
You can find out where you are eligible to vote at the New York state voter lookup database.
What happens if voters don’t approve a school budget?
Most school districts require a simple majority vote to pass the budget, and district voters typically approve the proposed budget. Voters approved about 96 percent of proposed school district budgets in 2025, according to the New York State School Boards Association.
If voters don’t pass the budget, Albert says the school has two options: put up the budget again for another vote on June 16 or go to a contingency budget. “I think most boards typically will make changes to a defeated budget, but if it’s very close, if it’s just a matter of a handful of votes, they may put it back up.”
If a school board decides to authorize a contingency budget, the district will adopt the same tax levy as the previous year.
FYI: We’re working on a guide to easily find your school district, polling site, and voting day details in Orange, Ulster, and Sullivan counties. Stay tuned.
Image: Exterior of electric school bus in New York (Photo Credit: New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, NYSERDA)