during pandemic-era remote learning<\/a>.<\/p>\nOther cuts would come from the elimination of student electives and giving up software subscriptions.<\/p>\n
Board members asked Bailey what would happen if they used more of their unassigned fund balance\u00a0\u2014 the money left over from the previous year. The proposed budget uses about $1.8 million of the $4.7 million available, as well as $500,000 in reserves.<\/p>\n
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Bailey downplayed that as an option. If the district used an additional $500,000, \u201cnext year, you could do it one more time, and then you have no money left,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The school board also asked about overriding the tax cap. That would require 60% approval from voters, as opposed to the simple majority that suffices when the budget does not go above the tax cap.<\/p>\n
According to a state law, if the budget does not pass after two votes, New York state would step in and prepare a contingency budget under which many new costs are prohibited, including equipment purchases, salary increases for non-union employees and new capital projects.\u00a0A contingency budget would have deeper cuts than the district\u2019s proposal, Bailey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA contingency budget would be a disaster, that\u2019s safe to say,\u201d school board President Mark DePace said.<\/p>\n
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Board member Diana Howard expressed unease with cutting staff, saying she \u201cdidn\u2019t want to just give up on our people,\u201d to applause from the audience. She has also\u00a0expressed reservations about raising taxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really want a whole lot coming in from the taxes, but I think the sting would be a little less if we were more supportive of our people (and voters knew) at least we\u2019re protecting them through our taxes,\u201d Howard said.<\/p>\n
Shannon Sullivan, a teacher and the vice president of the Hudson Teachers Association, said during public comments that she was \u201creally, really angry.\u201d In 2011, when the school budget failed a vote, Sullivan said she \u201cremember(ed) how our community came together and came up with a booster club, we funded a full position for music teacher, we did amazing things, and I\u2019m heartbroken that we\u2019re in this position again.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also questioned why there was only one position being cut to the district\u2019s central office.<\/p>\n
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About 70 people attended the meeting on Tuesday night, which often only has a few attendees. About 350 had watched the YouTube recording of the meeting as of Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The Hudson City School District \u2014 which has students from Hudson and the towns of Greenport, Livingston, Ghent, Stockport, Taghkanic and Claverack \u2014 has struggled in recent years. Bailey is the third superintendent to lead the system since longtime leader Maria Suttmeier retired in January 2022. The graduation rate in the 2024-2025 school year was 67%, compared to 85% for the state as a whole, according to the state Education Department.<\/p>\n
Many district students also live in poverty. Though there is wealth in Hudson, Bailey said about two-thirds of students at the school are economically disadvantaged.<\/p>\n
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The final meeting on the budget is April 21, when the school board is expected to vote on a budget. District residents will vote on May 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montgomery C. Smith Elementary School is seen in Hudson. The incorrect use of financial planning software is partially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[67,24942,611,612,844,610,9,11,10,49,51,50,12],"class_list":["post-200170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-education","tag-gcco","tag-hvexp","tag-hvnews","tag-latestnews","tag-local","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200170","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=200170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}