Last night, the Hudson City School District Board of Education held a public hearing on the proposed 2020-2021 budget. The total amount of the budget is $50.7 million ($50,684,738 to be exact), which is an increase of $892,275 over the current year and a 1.99 percent increase in the tax levy. More information about the budget is available in the Budget Book and the budget newsletter, both of which are available at the HCSD website. The latter is typically mailed to residents in the district, but that has not happened yet. The vote on the budget takes place less than two weeks from now, on June 7.
There were a total of 19 people participating in the Zoom meeting, only about eight of whom were not board members or HCSD employees. Only three of the members of the public opted to speak. One of those was Ken Sheffer, who asked a couple of questions that need to be shared. First, he asked about "pay cuts for senior leadership in the district, in line with what other districts are doing." HCSD superintendent Maria Suttmeier answered the question by denying that any districts have made pay cuts. Sheffer then asked about outreach to the community about hardship, citing a current unemployment rate during the pandemic of 30 percent. Suttmeier responded: "We've done more than other districts on this issue."
Sheffer's questions and Suttmeier's responses inspired me to do something I haven't done in a while, not since 2015: check SeeThroughNY to find out how much those working for the Hudson City School District are being paid. Back in 2015 when I checked, there were ten district employees being paid more than $100,000 a year and another seventeen being paid somewhere between $90,000 and $100,000. The figures available now, which are from 2019, indicate there were, last year, 29 district employees with salaries of more than $100,000 and another 39 employees being paid somewhere between $90,000 and $100,000 a year. All the information can be found here.
Under normal circumstances, if voters reject a budget, the school district can do one of three things: present the same budget to the voters a second time and hope for a different outcome; trim the budget and try again; adopt the contingency budget, which is the same as the 2019-2020 budget. This year, because the budget vote as been postponed and voting will be done by absentee ballot, the district's only recourse, should the voters reject the budget, would be to adopt the contingency budget, which would be the same as the current year's $49.8 million budget. According to Suttmeier, "The contingency budget squeezes out everything that motivates students to come to school." That's a pretty sad assessment.
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It squeezes everything out? It doesn't squeeze out the $100,000 salaries. Who in Hudson working for the school needs to make $100,000 a year? This is nuts. The 19 people turning out in the meeting show you the level of public awareness of the school system. Like the vote to approve the $15,000,000 football field, held on the back of the board of education ballot, how many taxpayers actually voted on that? The argument was that the football players shouldn't have to go around the corner to play at the football field at the Middle School, but now taxpayers are supposed to pay to build a baseball field at the former football field? So it is OK for baseball players to go to the Middle School to play, but not the football players? The taxpayers need to be educated and they all need to vote on these expenditures. This whole thing has a very shady feeling. Education is important, art, music and cultural history is important, are $15,000,000 football fields and $100,000 salaries really necessary?
ReplyDeleteP. Winslow is spot on right. The Hudson City School District is out of touch with the current crisis and with its voter and taxpayer base. As per Gossips’ review on SeeThroughNY, $7,010,549 million was spent in 2019 on just the top 68 salaries in Hudson Schools (of a total 393 reported jobs at HCSD). A few days ago, official State job numbers came in for the not-so-fortunate in NY. Upstate employment numbers are the worst in recorded history. Hudson’s sweet spot of leisure and hospitality was decimated with a Statewide job loss of 68%. Likewise, Statewide, the construction industry (also vital to Hudson) lost 167,700 jobs. At this very time in 2019 (cumulative March-May), 12,037 Hudson Valley residents filed first time unemployment claims. This year, measured at the same time and again just in the Hudson Valley, 185,575 jobless residents filed for relief for the first time. An increase of a whopping 1,442% over last year. That’s right, 1,442%! This is breathtaking and the path forward seems scary, but clear. This is THE MOMENT for the HCSD to cut spending and for us to say no to a tone-deaf million-dollar school budget increase. Vote NO on the proposed budget (you are supposed to receive a ballot at your home) and freeze spending at last year’s levels, which still provides more than enough for the education Mr. Winslow refers to.
ReplyDeleteI will vote no. Why are we paying such high salaries for such bad results? We have one of the worst school districts in the state, and are paying through the nose for it, and now we don't even have jobs. Time to trim the fat, HCSD, and I don't mean programs. I'm talking about too many chiefs making high salaries and getting no results. SMH
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