BEATRICE, Neb. - The Beatrice School Board has approved both the 2025-26 budget and property tax request. 

At Monday's school board meeting, board members were briefed on the budget and tax request by Superintendent Jason Alexander. 

The budget for this academic year is $34.7-million, which Alexander says is slightly higher than years past. 

"The reason for that is we were recipients, one of 46 schools in the state, to be given the CLSD grant, which equates to about $1.5-million this year and there's a year two that will include more money as well," Alexander said. "That does not impact the tax asking, just the budget expenditures so we had to build a budget big enough for those expenses."

As for the tax request, Alexander says the number has dropped. 

"We're happy to report that, because of the increase in valuations, we're able to drop the tax asking from about .88 cents in the general fund last year, to .77 cents this year, which is a decrease of about 9%."