Belleville School Budget Has Tax Hike, Job Cuts: See Final Numbers

BELLEVILLE, NJ — The Belleville Board of Education gave a green light to the district’s latest school budget last week. The spending plan will come with staff cuts and a tax hike for homeowners.

The board voted in favor of the 2026-2027 budget at their meeting on April 29.

Subscribe

View the user-friendly 2026-2027 budget here. View the district’s budget presentation here.

The budget will come with a 5.99 percent increase to the tax levy. An average Belleville homeowner with a property assessed at $280,565 will see an increase of $268 to the school portion of their taxes.

Property taxes in New Jersey are mainly made up of three parts: school, municipal and county. In 2025, the average Belleville resident paid $11,634 in property taxes on a home valued at $279,899 (not including credits and deductions). That broke down as follows: school (39.8%), municipal (47.2%) and county (13%).

>> RELATED: Property Taxes Keep Rising In Belleville: See Latest 5-Year Breakdown

A wave of staff cuts will take place under the latest budget, administrators said (article continues below):

The district will maintain all extracurricular and athletic programs, administrators noted.

Some of the largest cost increases in the budget include staff benefits (28 to 33%), energy (7 to 10%), insurance (10 to 15%) and special education/charter tuition (12 to 15%).

Here's where the money is being spent in Belleville, administrators said:

District administrators said that Belleville is operating $13.3 million below the state's "adequacy" level.

Belleville superintendent Erick Alfonso and business administrator Tina Iaccheo gave a budget presentation at the April 29 school board meeting. Watch footage here, or view it below (video is cued to the budget presentation at the 36:51 mark):

Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com. Learn more about advertising on Patch here. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.