The proposed budget involves a 5.8 percent increase in the tax levy. Of interest to property owners is the impact of that increase on their tax bill. The chart below calculates that.
For us in Hudson, the increase is $138.67 annually, or $11.56 a month, for every $200,000 of a property's assessed value. Most houses in Hudson are assessed at considerably more than $200,000, so the impact on the average Hudson homeowner will be considerably more than $138.67 a year.
There is one thing that seems encouraging in the presentation. Readers may remember the organization chart below, which Gossips published in 2024. It shows an impressive tier of administrators reporting directly (and exclusively) to then superintendent Juliette Pennyman, who created a few executive level positions during her tenure as superintendent.
According to the chart found in the presentation, starting in July 2026, there will only be two executive level positions reporting to the superintendent.
The vote on the budget, and for members of the Board of Education, takes place on Tuesday, May 19. The polling place for Hudson is the Central Fire Station at 77 North Seventh Street. The polls are open from 11:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.
COPYRIGHT 2026 CAROLE OSTERINK
1. Isn't there a NY State law capping school property taxes to 2% per year?
ReplyDeleteHow do they get around that with 5%?
2. Our offer remains to partner with the City of Hudson, Friends of Hudson Youth, or any other group to hire an independent auditor to tell City of Hudson residents exactly how much we are spending (combined), on HCSD, CoH Youth Center, and the 12 other groups, which youth, and which adults benefit from it all.
So far no word from City Hall, the Youth Center, or FOHY. Maybe the Black sisters want to chip in?
See Footnote 2 and 3 in our report for our conservative math
https://www.hudsoncommonsense.com/frenemiesofyouth
I expect your question about the tax cap is rhetorical, HCS, but I will answer it anyway. Yes, there is a 2 percent tax cap in the State of New York, but, by some arcane formula known only to a few, school districts and municipalities can exceed that cap. Hence HCSD is increasing the tax levy by 5.8 percent and the City of Hudson is increasing its tax levy by, I believe, 3.9 percent. Combined, that's 9.7 percent.
DeleteI had a longish conversation with one of the two pro-school-budget ladies at the Farmers Market this morning and it taught me a few things that did not make me particularly happy.
ReplyDeleteIt is very clear that they also have the well-being of their kids in mind and so they are honest in their pleas to vote yes on the budget. But their idea of what well-being means is markedly different from mine.
They want these perfectly sculpted children to emerge from the HCSD that exactly share their belief systems and in that pursuit, money is no objective and test results don't particularly matter to either.
The simpleton that I am meanwhile thinks that a school has two jobs only: Ensure that kids graduate with a properly developed cognitive apparatus that allows it to successfully take on a secondary education of their choice and successfully and with grace navigate the social machine we all live in.
To HCS: My takeaway from this conversation was that the two main arguments against how we treat kids here (abysmal academics, high cost per student) are the very two things they are not receptive to.
It will be interesting to see how that vote will turn out. I haven't seen any coverage at all in Hudson that the school taxes massively went up in Greenport and Claverack last year. Mine went up by 80%, most of my neighbors all went up by at least 50% and that was the result of Greenport and Claverack doing their reassessment. Hudson's school tax went down last year. I could see a lot of opposition against the budget in the outer municipalities of the HCSD.
I spoke to 2 of them last week. They asked if I planned to support the district budget. When told I did not, they asked me why. I told them because it fails in its core mission and more money isn't going to fix that. They insisted the HCSD was doing a bang-up job, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. They struck me as clearly delusional and probably shouldn't be around impressionable children.
DeleteMost likely the same two I ran into. I really only spoke in greater detail to one of the two (the one originally from Alabama). Your name by the way came up, and she was not a fan.
DeleteShe blames the poor results ultimately on socio-economic factors which would only be convincing if the Bengali cohort in the HCSD didn't do noticeably better than the others groups.
It prompted her to concede that cultural factors may also be at play and then we agreed to never talk about it again since that topic is verboten.
I recall we agreed on one other thing at last: There shouldn't be school bus service for kids living in Hudson proper. They can walk or bike. The transportion budget is one of the many albatrosses.
BTW: Susan Troy suggested you should be written in on the ballot. Are you up for that?
Susan Troy submitted this comment by email:
ReplyDeleteSince today, Saturday, May 9th, is mostly over, there are ten calendar days until job performance review day, Tuesday, May 19th.
A successful write-in campaign is possible to organize.
Since I don't know most of the people - well actually I don't know anyone who has posted on this blog, on this issue, under not-their-names - the only person I can enthusiastically 100% endorse is John Friedman, whom I like and respect a great deal, and who would work, clear-eyed, with zero fear, to execute what seems to be our collective goal: raise the literacy rates and math proficiency across the board.
There's two strategies that could work: everyone write in, for instance, John's name and not pull any other levers - a bullet vote that could get, for instance, John in the top three; or organize a slate of three posters from this blog, and everyone write those three names in.
This "pop-up" write-in campaign can get done in the next ten calendar days if we are, collectively, disciplined and cooperative in terms of messaging and execution, and of course, candidate selection. (I would not be a good choice.)
Here is potentially, the data-driven messaging:
The HCSD hasn't been, and currently isn't, educating our kids.
HCSD comes in at 918 out of 1,008 school districts in New York State.
28% - 34% of our kids are proficient in math.
32% - 34% of our kids are proficient in reading.
Don't ALL our kids deserve a shot at productive, profitable, independent futures?
For the execution piece, we all need to get ourselves and five other like-minded people to the polls on Tuesday, May 19th. And by getting people to the polls, I mean sending reminder texts and Emails; making reminder - urgent - reminder phone calls; walking with folks to the polls; driving folks to the polls.
I'm still waiting for the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce and the CEDC Leadership to weigh in.
A victory is possible. We have ten days to do it!
And signs!!! In our yards, and in our gardens, and in our windows!
And again, much gratitude to Carole for all the extra work she is doing, posting my Emails.