Board cuts its own tax rise to 1.31% as state aid falls $3.3 million

What happened

On April 30, 2026 the board reduced the levy increase in its tentative 2026-27 budget from 2 percent to 1.31 percent and adopted a budget of about $182.7 million. The filed budget puts the local tax levy at $146,455,968 and state aid at $17,758,333, down about $3.28 million from $21,035,094. Costs rose anyway: health insurance up 19 percent, about $5.3 million; other insurance up about 20 percent; electricity up 14 percent. To balance it the district drew $6,750,000 from capital reserve, $5.75 million more than the year before, and spent its legal reserve down to zero. Without that extra capital draw, general fund revenue would have grown by just $384,000.

Why it matters to families

Taxes still rise sharply in the 2026 tax year, because the previous year's large tax-levy-incentive increase is collected across two tax years; administration told the hearing that even a zero percent increase would have added about $899 for the average Hillsborough home assessed at $628,112. And the reserves used to hold the increase down are finite: capital reserve is projected to fall to $1,948,754 by June 2027 and the legal reserve to nothing, so the same gap will have to be closed differently next year.

The evidence

The 2026-27 user-friendly budget gives the levy, state aid, per-pupil and reserve figures. The April 30, 2026 meeting recording records the reduction from 2 percent to 1.31 percent, the tax arithmetic for both Hillsborough and Millstone, the two-tax-year explanation and the district's statement that remaining cuts amount to under about $300,000.

The source