Voters in 24 New York school districts return to the polls on Tuesday for school budget revotes. Last month, voters in 96 percent of school districts outside New York City conducting votes approved their school budgets for the upcoming year.

The 683 school districts that held budget votes proposed an average increase in spending of 4.6 percent, and average per pupil spending to be $35,012.

Altogether, New York schools spent $30,012 per pupil in 2022-2023, which was 82 percent above the national average of $16,526, according to annual U.S. Census Bureau data released last month.

A statutory cap limits the annual growth of each school district’s primary revenue source — local property taxes. The cap generally limits tax levy growth to the lower of two percent or the rate of inflation, except as modified by district-level factors. Those factors usually make the threshold higher. This year, with inflation forecast to be 2.3 percent, the starting point for the tax cap is two percent.

School budgets with a tax levy at or below the statutory cap require a majority vote. A tax levy that exceeds the tax cap requires a 60 percent super-majority vote. Most districts required a majority to pass their budgets this year. Forty-two school budgets exceeded their tax caps and needed 60 percent approval.

Of the 24 school districts that had their proposed school budgets defeated, 17 could not meet the 60 percent threshold. The other seven failed to meet the majority vote needed to pass their tax cap-compliant budgets.

The budget for Central Square Central School District went down to defeat by a margin of five votes out of 1,507 voters. Central Square’s board of education found cuts totaling $1.2 million and is proposing a $102.7 million budget that takes the tax levy increase down from 6.86 percent to three percent.

Voters on Tuesday will vote in 12 districts that have proposed budgets at or below the tax cap after failing to get a super-majority to approve a tax cap-breaching budget. School boards in five districts are trying again to get to the 60 percent threshold for tax levies above the tax cap.

Germantown Central School District failed to meet the super-majority threshold with 57.8 percent of 178 voters voting to pass the budget — seven votes short. The District is running the same budget back again in Tuesday’s vote.

Besides cutting expenses like Central Square, some school districts made revenue adjustments based on increased school aid from the late-passed state budget, dipped into reserve funds or received a private grant.

Mahopac Central School District missed a majority vote by 1.2 percent, or 30 out of 1,219 votes cast. The board of education proposed a $145.1 million budget for 2025-2026, which was a 1.89 percent increase over the current budget. The board is holding firm on spending, after the state allocated more aid than expected and tapping into $3.9 million in fund balances to hold the tax levy flat.

Voters in the Corning-Painted Post Area School District defeated its cap-busting budget by a large margin. It garnered only 42.1 percent support out of 2,891 votes cast. The district budget included a 6.3 percent spending increase of $8.7 million. Its total proposed spending was $146.1 million, or $33,057 per student. For Tuesday’s revote Corning-Painted Post is proposing a budget under the tax cap based, in part, on new revenue from a $393,000 increase in state aid and a $1.8 million grant from Corning Incorporated.

Reserves are finite and private funds may not be evergreen, which leaves open questions of what school districts that used such revenue sources this year will do to match expenses and revenues in future years without making unwanted cuts or breach the tax cap to balance their books.

A school district that does not get a budget passed in a revote must adopt a contingent budget. Under a contingent budget, the law caps the administrative component under a formula and the tax levy cannot be greater than the tax levy of the prior year.

The contingent budget is supposed to include only those ordinary contingent expenses needed to maintain the district’s education program and property and protect the health and safety of students and staff. Expenses that are not ordinary contingent expenses can include accreditation fees, school surveys, equipment rental, non-emergency capital expenditures, free use of school facilities by outside groups and uniforms.

The Empire State’s property tax cap continues to have its intended effect as over nine out of every ten school districts voted on proposed budgets at or under the tax cap in May. And less than a quarter of school districts that did not pass budgets over the tax cap got their budgets to or below the cap for the revote on Tuesday.