Belleville School Board Votes Against Budget With Tax Increase

BELLEVILLE, NJ — The Belleville Board of Trustees voted down the proposed school budget at their meeting this week.

The board voted to introduce the district’s preliminary budget in March. At the time, the potential increase for the school portion of a property owner’s taxes stood at $358 for a home assessed at $279,900 – with administrators saying that number would come down in the final budget. Read More: Belleville School Taxes Could Increase Under Latest Budget

After making cuts, administrators whittled the tax hike down to $126. Matthew Paladino, the district’s business administrator, said that making any more cuts would likely mean staff reductions. In order to reach an additional $250,000 of savings, the district would have to eliminate between eight and 10 positions.

The spending plan still wasn’t good enough for the majority of the school board, which voted 6-1 against the administration’s 2025-2026 budget on Monday.

The vote put the budget under the purview of Thomas Egan, the state monitor assigned to oversee the district’s finances, who is able to overrule the board’s vote – or take no action at all.

Watch footage from the April 28 meeting here, or view it below (video is cued to the budget hearing).

The current budget situation may be a bit of déjà vu for Belleville residents.

Last year, the Belleville Board of Education saw a tie vote at the annual budget hearing. That version of the budget would have meant a $171 tax increase for a homeowner with a property valued at $275,000 – which was knocked down from a $413 proposed increase.

The tie vote meant that the district’s proposed budget automatically went back to the “technical review” phase, which included a potential 10.2 percent increase to the local tax levy. After it was sent to Egan for review, the state monitor informed the district that he was exercising his authority over the budget process. The result? Approval for a 6.42 percent tax hike.

• See Related: School Tax Hike In Belleville; Monitor Makes Decision After Tie Vote

The New Jersey Department of Education assigned Egan to oversee the financial operations of the Belleville school district in 2014 after a review of the district’s required financial audit revealed serious flaws in its finances, according to state officials.

The state monitor has intervened in other decisions involving Belleville schools in the past, recently overruling a 4-3 vote on the School 1 property.

A state monitor was also recently appointed in the neighboring school district of Nutley, which has been seeing severe budget issues. Read More: NJ Appoints State Monitor In Nutley Schools Amid Financial Woes

Property taxes in New Jersey are mainly made up of three parts: school, municipal and county. Here’s how that played out in Belleville for 2024, according to state data:

• School – 39.6%
• Municipal – 47.4%
• County – 12.9%

The average Belleville resident paid $11,273 in property taxes on a home valued at $279,525 last year. Read More: See Average Property Tax Bills In Belleville, Nutley (2025 Update)

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