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The district started using the financial planning software WinCap, broadly used in New York and New Jersey schools, in 2016. However, the district did not do all the onboarding for the software and used it incorrectly, and failed to record some new hires using the program.<\/p>\n
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\u201cEvery time the district created a job and didn\u2019t speak to the (school) board for whatever reason, and hired someone and didn\u2019t record that on WinCap \u2026 there\u2019s the potential that (new) person has never been accounted for in a budget,\u201d Bailey said during the Jan. 20 meeting, later adding he \u201ccan\u2019t explain why\u201d this happened.<\/p>\n
Bailey, who has only been leading the district since August, said those employees were accounted for in the payroll and received paychecks, but their salaries were not reflected in the budget. These mistakes were rolled over into subsequent budgets, he said.<\/p>\n
The total amount in salaries not accounted for in previous budgets was not immediately clear on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of the district\u2019s other financial problems are more systemic. Increases in health care costs amounted to an additional $800,000 in the proposed budget. The cost of retirement benefits also grew.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is every school district,\u201d Bailey said at a March 17 meeting. \u201cThe insurance costs and retirement benefits (are) becoming the focus of every budgetary conversation, and something that\u2019s untenable for us, and obviously for probably any business that offers benefits to its employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
A $1.2 million grant will also not be available next school year. Also, state aid \u2014 which accounts for half of the budget \u2014 remains flat.<\/p>\n
It is now up to the school board to decide how large a tax increase to propose, how much of the unassigned fund balance to use, and what cuts to make.<\/p>\n
At the most recent meeting, on March 24, school board member Diana Howard summed up her feelings.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m just in panic mode right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Howard appeared to have little appetite for recommending a budget that would require a significant tax increase. She pointed out that Hudson had just completed a reassessment of city property values, which raised taxes for many, and she did not want to pile on an additional tax burden for residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cRetired people don\u2019t have a lot of money, and I\u2019m here representing those people,\u201d Howard said.<\/p>\n
If the board\u2019s proposed budget requires a tax increase of the maximum allowable amount, the owner of a $200,000 home in Hudson would pay $138 more in annual taxes, while homeowners in Claverack would pay $209 more in annual taxes for a $200,000 home. (The Hudson City School District spans all or part of seven municipalities.)<\/p>\n
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The board must consider the pocketbooks of district residents in preparing a budget, as they could reject the budget when it comes up for a vote on May 19.<\/p>\n
School Board Vice President Matthew Mackerer said during the March 24 meeting that he did not want to spend the maximum amount of the unassigned fund balance, as that money would be unavailable the next year, when costs would still be high. He said he was more amenable to using half the max amount, or $1.8 million.<\/p>\n
In any scenario, there will have to be cuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the worst thing I have to say \u2014 there is no choice,\u201d Bailey said at the latest meeting. \u201cThere\u2019s no choice to say, \u2018I think this is important, I don\u2019t want to get rid of it.\u2019 This is a very difficult, awkward place where there isn\u2019t a choice \u2014 so it is, ‘which is the least harmful choice? ‘\u201d<\/p>\n
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The board discussed consolidating regular bus routes, decreasing school staff through attrition, and offering incentives for additional staff to retire.\u00a0It also considered cutting costs by not allowing additional students to attend specialized schools, such as BOCES or the Bard Early College program, though students already in the multiyear programs would continue to attend.<\/p>\n
Laura Bender, the president of the Hudson Teachers\u2019 Association, said instructors\u2019 \u201cbig concern is the continuity of programming for our students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of the pending cuts, she said teachers \u201cknow that those reductions are going to have an impact on classrooms across the district.\u201d\u00a0Teachers do not have a say in the budgetary process, she added.<\/p>\n
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A spokesperson for\u00a0the Hudson City School District did not answer questions by press time.<\/p>\n
Hudson School Board President Mark DePace asked the district to prepare plans for cutting $2.5 to $4.5 million from the proposed budget, allowing for different options with tax increases and using the unassigned fund balance, before the next meeting on April 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hudson\u2019s schools, including Montgomery C. Smith Elementary School, above, face a multimillion-dollar budget gap for 2026-2027. The incorrect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[67,24942,611,612,844,610,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-185209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-gcco","10":"tag-hvexp","11":"tag-hvnews","12":"tag-latestnews","13":"tag-local","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-news","17":"tag-new-york-state","18":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","19":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}