Herkimer Central School District residents voted 223-61 on Tuesday, May 20, to approve the district’s $35,250,696 budget for the 2025-26 school year.
“Our school community once again turned out to show its support for the district with this budget vote, and we truly appreciate that,” Herkimer Superintendent Kathleen Carney said. “The budget maintains programs and staff while staying under the calculated tax levy limit. As always, the budget was developed with the best interests of both the students and the taxpayers in mind.”
The 2025-26 budget is 3.88% increase from the 2024-25 spending plan. It includes a tax levy increase of 1.75%, which is below Herkimer’s tax levy limit of 4.42%, as calculated using the state’s formula. The district has been under the levy limit for 14 of the 15 years since the limit’s inception in 2012-13, and the one year over the limit was a 0% increase. Over each of the past five years, the district has maintained a tax levy increase at or below 1.75% – with three of the five years at 0%.
In addition to maintaining programs and staff, the budget covers filling or adding three special education teacher positions, an academic support teacher and an account clerk, and the district will contract for more part-time occupational therapy services.
Also included in the budget is an amount not to exceed $250,000 for the purpose of a capital outlay project to complete minor renovations and upgrades and to purchase associated furnishings and equipment at the district’s school buildings.
Along with the budget vote, four Herkimer Central School District Board of Education seats were up for election. Candidates Matthew Collis (242 votes), Aleksander Verenich (221 votes) and Brian Crandall (221 votes) received the three highest vote totals and were elected to three-year terms from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028. Robert Mihevc received the fourth highest vote total with 210 votes and was elected to a term of two years and six weeks from May 21, 2025, through June 30, 2027. Mihevc will be filling the remainder of the term for the seat originally held by Michele Gilbert, before she resigned. Matthew Collis was appointed to fill that seat through the election.
Additionally, district residents voted 234-43 to approve the Frank J. Basloe Library’s proposed tax levy of $371,020 to fund the library’s annual budget and elected Lexie Dunn to a five-year term on the library Board of Trustees with 216 votes. There were some write-in votes for the district’s Board of Education and the library’s Board of Trustees with nobody receiving more than one or two votes.