The Pine Bush Central School District Board of Education adopted the 2025-2026 budget Thursday night, a $149,849,943 spending plan that maintains all existing academic, co-curricular and athletic opportunities for our students, and includes a new Career and Technical Education (CTE) class at Pine Bush High School.

Next step is for voters to have their say. Voters in the district will vote on the budget on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

In addition to the budget vote, voters will also chose three board members for three-year terms. The three incumbents – Erik Buckley, Dori Johnson and Gretchen Meier – are running unopposed.

 

The budget details

The proposed tax levy will increase by 1.62 percent or $1,029,967, for a total of $64,416,509.

This budget is 5.9 percent more than the current year’s budget, an increase of $8,345,296. State aid increased 10.58 percent, providing just over $7.677 million in additional aid over the current year’s figure. The district will also use $3,086,040 in fund balance for this budget.

The tax levy is the amount of money raised by taxes. Fund balance is money that was previously collected by the district but not appropriated.

 

What this means to homeowners

A homeowner in the district, with a home valued at $400,000, would pay approximately $96.64 more for the year in school taxes if this budget is approved by voters.

 

Providing for our students

The proposed budget continues to provide the strong academic programs we have built here at our district, providing a safe and nurturing environment for our students.

The budget adds a business CTE teacher at Pine Bush High School, an elementary special education teacher, a preschool special education itinerant teacher, a middle school special education teacher and a teaching assistant. One in-school suspension teacher and a high school counselor are not being replaced.

Two new math teams – one at each of our middle schools – are proposed in this budget.

 

Budget Vote and Board of Education Election Tuesday, May 20, 2025

There are two polling locations in the school district.

Residents of the towns of Gardiner, Shawangunk, Crawford and Montgomery will vote at Pine Bush High School.

Residents of the towns of Mount Hope, Wallkill and Mamakating will vote at Circleville Elementary School.

Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, May 20, 2025.

We encourage all registered voters to please participate.

If anyone has a question on their voting location, call the district office at 845-744-2031.