As homeowners in Hudson face a possible 5.8 percent increase in school taxes, Hudson Common Sense takes a hard look at the cost to the taxpayer of a related Hudson institution: the Hudson Youth Department. The special report titled "Half the Kids. Twenty Times the Budget" can be read here.
This report is extremely messy and problematic. As a resident (with no kids) it saddens me to see disparate issues being jumbled together into a mis-leading infographic. Not only is the math incorrect, but adding cost based on non-profit orgs is not logical.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the attack on the Friends of Hudson Youth makes no note of the fact that the City of Hudson does not have a Parks Department leaving the Hudson Youth Center to account for daily management of a 14-acre park with a public swimming beach, trails, and recreational areas.
Thank you for reading, continue reading until you hit the footnotes, Melly
DeleteRight now you have three objections, zero rebuttals. How is the math incorrect? Show us, please.
The math is sourced, rounded down, and a forensic accountant challenge stands open.
The nonprofits are counted because taxpayers fund all of them for the same 720 kids. And "we manage the park because there's no Parks Department" is our argument, not yours: that's mission creep with an MOU and no exit clause.
Besides - running a youth center that quietly became Hudson's parks department (without a democratic vote) is like hiring a babysitter who redecorates your house and then invoices you for interior design.
The job crept. The bill didn't.
This article really does feel like a case study in the dangers of AI-assisted argument making- when you take a bunch of loosely connected information, skew the framing to support your point, package it in a polished “data-driven” format, and hope nobody checks whether the math or comparisons actually make sense. I will say though, Hugo is prolific at producing this stuff! It makes one wonder what one earth he would do with all his time saved, if he had just moved to another town with lower taxes and less community resources. Imagine the possibilities!
ReplyDeleteThere’s honestly too much here to fully unpack, and I don’t have the time or interest to spend any more time inside the deep cynical Hudson Common Sense universe, but a few things jump out immediately:
The proposed HCSD budget is $59,171,704.
District enrollment is 1,474 students.
That comes out to roughly $40,143 per student, not the inflated numbers being tossed around here.
That budget pays for teacher salaries, pensions, transportation, buildings, maintenance, utilities, athletics, arts, special education mandates, food service, and the enormous amount of infrastructure required to run a public school district- this number is not much different from our neighboring districts- and we have a high population of kids with extra needs.
Also, HCSD serves students from Hudson, Greenport, Claverack, Livingston, Stockport, and parts of Ghent.
So I genuinely do not understand the logic of then switching to dividing separate youth organizations by only the 720 children living within Hudson city limits and stacking those numbers onto district spending, as though they are all serving the exact same population in the exact same way- unless your just trying to get as big enough number to enrage people to vote no!
And yes, taxes are frustrating. Everyone feels squeezed right now. But personally, I want to live in a community that invests in kids! I want our children to grow up surrounded by parks, programming, support systems, food access, teachers, mentors, and neighbors who actually care whether they thrive!
I did the math on my own proposed school tax increase: it comes out to about an extra $11 per month.
Thats one less latte, Hugo- we’ll survive!
Just to end VOTING NO ON THIS INCREASED SCHOOL TAX HURTS OUR KIDS!
The real number is closer to $60k, if you include state and federal spending.
DeleteWe rounded down, a lot. And we used HCSD's latest presentation btw;
https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2026/02/some-intel-from-school-board-meeting.html
And don't worry... re: "too much here to fully unpack"... we will unpack all the details over the next week in daily drops.
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https://www.hudsoncommonsense.com/subscribe
Your math on HCSD is close to ours (we use actualized spend rather than the proposed budget) which gets you to $41,994, not $40,143. Round either way: it's still Manhattan private school money for bottom-quartile results.
Read Footnote 3, it will explain your denominator error.
Also... we can double the spending per student to $100k if you want, and double HCSD school taxes... it will just come with the trade-off of massive "displacement," of the working middle class.
Pick one.
Melly Mimms - exactly. A full summer program that employs counselors, life guards , field trips, buses , the supplies to run the camp. I’m sure I’m leaving something out. These children are our most vulnerable population . As a community, we should all help to insure they have what they need.
ReplyDeleteIf they are the most vulnerable, why are their reading scores in the bottom quartile of New York State after twenty years and a twentyfold budget increase?
DeleteThe moral case for spending more is also the moral case for demanding results.
Chatham gets better outcomes for a fraction the cost. The children (and their parents) deserve both.
And pay for a PORTA JOHN at $250 per month 12 months of the year?
ReplyDeleteThe Youth Department maintains the park? Any park? I believe that's Public Works, not Youth.
ReplyDeleteHannah Black: Excellent points -- but our kids can't read, write, do basic arithmetic or graduate in a timely fashion. Consequently, the HCSD is a failed organization by any measure. Voting "no" on the budget sends the message that the HCSD is already hurting our kids and our families, that it's time to stop pretending it's not, and that more money won't fix this bloated, broken-down and sad excuse for a public school system.
And Nick: It's nice to provide for the Hudson youth, so long as I'm only paying for Hudson youth. But I'm not -- I'm paying for plenty of out-of-town kids.