The North Colonie Central School District’s Board of Education adopted the proposed budget for the 2025-26 school year at the April 1, 2025 budget committee meeting. This was the final in a series of annual public budget meetings to review the proposed 2025-26 budget. The livestream from the meeting and the presentation are available along with all prior meetings on the Budget & Finance webpage.
The budget for the 2025-26 school year is projected to be $155,230,502. This budget would allow the district to maintain all existing programs and staff. The proposed plan would increase spending next year by $1,138,088 million or 0.74% from budget to budget. The proposed tax levy increase is 3.00%, below the maximum allowable levy limit of 4.00% under the state’s property tax cap law.
North Colonie Assistant Superintendent for Business Cybil Howard presented the proposed budget to the Board of Education. She also highlighted the future planning involved for the district with the New York State budget.
“We feel very confident that the budget we’re proposing to you tonight and to the voters in May is a responsible one,” said Howard. “I just really want to thank the administrators and the staff here at North Colonie for being very responsible and thoughtful about the proposals they submitted throughout the process this year. There are still a lot of unknowns. As you know the New York State budget has not been approved yet, so we’re still working with anticipated, projected state aid numbers. We’re carrying conservative numbers so we always hope that those numbers increase a little bit, but we are confident that the numbers we are proposing put us in a good position to continue to move forward.”
Of the proposed budget, 63.43% of district revenues would come from real property taxes, with a projected $49,848,886 (32.11%) in state foundation aid. Other revenues such as tuition, PILOT payments, prior year refunds, Medicaid billing, etc. are projected to account for $6,045,602 (3.89%) with additional fund balance or reserves accounting for an estimated $868,040 (0.56%). The revenues presented are projected at this point in time. The projected additional fund balance needed could change once state aid is finalized.
North Colonie Superintendent Kathleen Skeals wrapped up the presentation, reflecting on the efforts taken in developing a comprehensive, yet conservative budget.
“I just want to echo again what Mrs. Howard said,” said Skeals. “This really has been a team development and I would absolutely agree that we put forth a very responsible budget for our voters. It’s very comparable to what we did last year in terms of keeping it consistent with fund balance. We are able to make some small additions to our existing programs and staff so when I think about where we’ve always rooted ourselves in ‘Do we have an excellent program and are we fiscally responsible?’ I think this budget meets both of those.”
Voting for the 2025-26 proposed budget will take place Tuesday, May 20, 2025 from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Voting will take place in the Goodrich Building (North Colonie District Office) at 91 Fiddlers Lane in Latham, NY. For more information on how to register to vote, visit our website.