HILLTOWNS — Berne-Knox-Westerlo voters approved their school district’s proposed budget and, for the fourth year in a row, cast ballots for uncontested school board candidates, re-upping the three-year terms of incumbents Nathan Elble and Kimberly Lovell.

The $25.6 million budget, with its 3.2-percent tax increase, was approved 269-to-85. Elble received 295 votes, while Lovell received 289, with just six write-ins. Voters also authorized a roughly $644,000 school-bus purchase.

Budget and board votes at BKW have been tame in recent years, thanks to low tax increases (and some decreases) and no-contest elections. 

The tax increase of the 2023-24 budget is due primarily to rising insurance costs, which the district had been able to negotiate down somewhat from where they stood at the earliest public stages of the budget process. 

The state-set tax cap for the district this year was 4.1 percent.