When asked by an audience member what would happen if the voters rejected the budget, three options were explained: (1) the BOE could propose the same budget for a second vote; (2) the BOE could further reduce the budget and propose a new budget; (3) the BOE could go directly to contingency, which would mean that the budget now proposed would be the budget, since a 9.8 percent increase is within the parameters allowed by the state for a contingency budget.
It ain't over 'til it's over.... But this is a terrible day for Hudson and Hudson schools: kills school programs and drives taxpayers out of town. This budget plan represents the end of a long and arduious period of -- doing nothing. Lazy budgeting. And, not surprisingly, it's a lose-lose. It is budgeting at its worst: fire people and raise taxes.... Would someone please run for school board (3 positions up for grabs) so we can stop the hemoraghing.
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Here's one for you Carole:
ReplyDelete“The state and federal government through us under the bus,” said Meister.
They threw us under last year; this year, they were through with us.
ReplyDeleteThis was an all-but-guaranteed outcome once it became clear that the State and Feds would be cutting funding. School boards all over are making some cuts, but the bulk of the shortfall is just being made up by local property taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder there's such resistance to Cuomo's 2% cap proposal -- that would mean districts would have to more seriously tighten their belts and look for waste in their budgets.
Side note: In Massachusetts school taxes are computed by the number of students each municipality sends to the school. So if (say) Greenport was sending more students per capita to the HCSD, the Town's taxpayers would pay a proportionately higher percentage of the school tax bill than the rest.
No Union wage freeze? I have read of unions in other Municipalities freezing their wages
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