BELMAR — The Belmar Board of Education (BOE) adopted the 2025 to 2026 school budget, totaling just over $17 million, at its meeting Tuesday evening.
The tentative budget originally totaled $16,661,014. However, because of the approval of a tax levy incentive aid program from the state, the district was able to increase expenditures by $595,484, for a new budget total of $17,256,498.
The budget supports an estimated 588 students in grades pre-K to 12, according to the budget presentation, including 405 elementary school students, 160 high school students, 15 vocational high school students and eight special needs placements.
The tax levy for the general fund is $10,933,064, an increase of $936,389, or 9.37%, from last year’s total of $9,996,675. The debt service is set at $386,004 for a total of $11,319,068 to be raised by taxation. The tax levy makes up for 64.62% of the total budget.
The annual school tax bill will increase $226 on a house assessed at the borough average, according to the budget presentation by Michael Bardsley, school businesses administrator/board secretary.
TAX LEVY INCENTIVE AID
Specific districts were given the opportunity to apply to the commission of education to increase expenditures, including an allocation of tax levy incentive aid in order to satisfy the thoroughness and efficiency of (state) standards.
Belmar BOE is “below local fair share” and is “spending below adequacy,” which allows the district to participate in this program, Bardsley said. As a result, Belmar BOE has been granted approval to increase expenditures to support the school’s necessary operations, while meeting state standards.
The final budget numbers were updated from the tentative budget numbers, to reflect the inclusion of the tax levy incentive program and tax levy incentive aid.
Because of the tax levy incentive program, the final budget has an increase of $567,128 from the tentative budget tax levy of $10,365,936, according to the board, which equates to the final budget tax levy of $10,933,064. It also affected the “other state aid” revenue (the tax levy incentive aid), which was zero in the original tentative budget, increasing to $28,356 in the final budget.
The estimated tax rate this year is 0.6143. The average assessed home in Belmar valued at $596,870 will see a school tax bill of $3,667, an increase of $226 from last year.
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