Voters in the Kingston, Onteora, New Paltz and Saugerties school districts signaled their approval across the board of proposed school budgets and chose candidates for boards of education in May 20 voting.
Onteora central school district (OCSD)
Voters in the OCSD approved a $63,558,660 budget proposal by a margin of 1,936-655, but their Optimizing Onteora capital project fell 1,164-1,398. Onteora’s tally included in-person, absentee, affidavit and early mail votes.
The budget includes a tax levy of $49,402,800, a 2 percent increase over 2024-25, nearly a full percentage point lower than the state tax cap for the district.
Proposition 2: Optimizing Onteora: A Tax Neutral Capital Project to enact a districtwide central campus, including improvements and alterations to Bennett Elementary School, proved controversial as it included the closure of Woodstock Elementary School, likely at the end of the 2026-27 school year. Ahead of the vote, district officials stressed that voting no on Proposition 2 is unlikely to save Woodstock Elementary from being closed.
Three candidates vied for two open seats, with Jenny Jared (1,369 votes) and Rory Smith (1,264 votes) outpacing Daniel Aliberte (1,115 votes). Michael Hochman received 679 write-in votes.
Kingston City School District (KCSD)
With a significantly higher turnout than last year, the KCSD’s $249,522,500 budget for the 2025-26 school year passed by an unofficial margin of 1,781-957. The “yes” votes for the budget outpaced the total of all voters last year, when the budget passed 1,201-523.
The spending plan maintains all student programs while staying below the state-mandated tax cap increase of 7.27 percent, meaning it would only need a simple majority to pass. In the district’s proposal, the tax levy would rise to $125,791,600, an increase of around $8.2 million, or 6.97 percent.
After the voters were tallied, superintendent Paul Padalino said he appreciated the community support in the face of a challenging budget process.
“We’re adjusting to this new reality where we’ve gone from being a you know low wealth/high needs district and within 12 months we’re all of a sudden we’re a high wealth/low needs district, as far as our state funding is concerned. That really threw us a little bit of a curveball. We did have to ask the taxpayers to go in on kind of a high tax levy, which we don’t usually do … I can understand how some of our taxpayers had some pause, for sure. But this is the frustrating part: We appear wealthy, but our kids are exactly the same as they were last year, and the year before, and the year before.”
Tallies are unofficial until affidavit votes are counted, but the results are unlikely to change. The same is true with the voting for three open seats on the board of education, with challenger Stephanie Kearns (1,814 votes) joining incumbents Marie Anderson (1,675 votes) and Stephen Spicer (1,659 votes) in victory. Challengers Erika Bernabei (Middleton) (1,076 votes) and Robyn Tiano (916 votes) also ran.
Saugerties Central School District (SCSD)
One year after the SCSD’s first bite at the apple failed to gain the support of a needed supermajority, their $79,876,153 spending plan for 2025-26 passed with flying colors in unofficial results with a margin of 1,229-465.
After the tallies were revealed, superintendent Dan Erceg said he was grateful to the community for the overwhelming support.
“I take this (total) that they’re supportive of the steps we’re taking and the progress we’re making in our continued vision for our kids in our schools,” he said.
The tax levy in the budget proposal is $47,354,312, an increase of 3.43 percent, the state-mandated cap increase, meaning only a simple majority was needed to pass. Even after affidavit votes are counted, the district more than met the challenge.
To the surprise of perhaps no one, voters also endorsed the only three candidates running for three open seats on the board of education. Challenger Michelle Gramoglia (1,227 votes), incumbent Christine Bellarosa (1,173 votes) and former board president Robert Thomann (982 votes) faced little opposition from the more than three dozen write-in names, except for one: Andrea Viviani, who ran in 2023 and fell less than 40 votes shy of earning a seat. Viviani received 129 write-in votes.
New Paltz Central School District (NPCSD)
The NPCSD’s $76,095,330 spending plan for the 2025-26 school year met with resounding success at the polls on Tuesday night, unofficially passing by a margin of 1,038-369. The budget comes with an overall 4.35 percent tax levy increase.
“We are very pleased that the community consistently supports us,” said superintendent Stephen Gratto after the voters were counted. “This is especially impressive because we recently passed a $17 million facilities project. So we appreciate all their support.”
With just one name on the school board ballot, incumbent Jason Clark, filling all three seats may come down to write-in votes. Among the names bandied about in the community over the past few weeks were three candidates endorsed by the New Paltz United Teachers: Amy Gillespie, Marissa Piazza and Matthew Pilek.
District officials are expected to reveal the results of the school board election at a board of education meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 21 after Hudson Valley One went to press. We will share results online ahead of next week’s print edition.
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