Echoing last year’s school budget vote, 97% of New York school districts voted in favor of their budgets on Tuesday, with that number rising to 99% for school districts staying within the property tax cap. 

Forty-two districts statewide sought to override the 2% property tax cap; those districts needed a supermajority of votes to pass their budgets. Seventeen of those attempts failed. The districts will likely revamp their budgets and try again in June.

According to David Albert, chief communications and marketing officer at the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA), because the state budget was so late, many school districts had to dip into their rainy day fund to balance their budgets. 

“[But] we did get some relief in this year’s budget,” he told Capital Tonight. “Districts can now get a second 2-year waiver for the purchase mandate on electric buses.” 

New York is transitioning to a 100% zero-emission electric school bus fleet by 2035.

It’s too early to know how many transportation proposition questions were passed in this year’s school budget vote, but in 2024, according to NYSSBA, there were about 270, some for diesel buses, some for electric.