The Hudson City School District in Columbia County is facing a $4 million budget gap and could be eliminating dozens of positions.
“We're going to present to you about $4 million in reductions from various parts of the district, and I'm not exaggerating when I said we looked at every area, and every area is helping to balance this,” said interim Superintendent Brian Bailey.
While the Hudson Board of Education debated how to best cut costs, union members were not impressed with the board’s plan.
Bailey said much of the deficit comes from unplanned expenses–expenses that quickly add up.
Bailey cited increased healthcare costs and almost $1 million dollar adjustment in pharmaceutical costs.
A surprise factor in the budget gap is the district's improper use of financial planning software it implemented in 2016, Times Union reported.
As a result, the district only had $200,000 dollars in unassigned funds leftover from that last year’s budget – a lot lower than it would be normally.
“So we kind of pushed off what happened last year was happening last year off into this year,” Bailey said.
Bailey said this year leaders are trying to reduce the budget by about $4 million dollars to get down to $59 million.
To bridge that gap, leaders want to make changes to transportation, like cutting nine bus runs by putting kids from across grades K-12 on the same bus.
District leaders have also proposed cutting technology costs and are considering a 5.8 % tax levy.
Bailey proposed making tutoring virtual using state offered services called Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).
And finally they would eliminate more than 30 staff.
The staff that are on the chopping block include 15 teaching aides, 14 teachers and student support, and one position each from the custodians, clerical positions, administration, and central office.
The board also discussed using over $2 million dollars from the district’s savings, which Bailey said could leave the district in desperate fiscal health if they repeated that.
“We might have the possibility to do that two more times before there were no more unassigned fund balances, and our reserves would be depleted,” said Bailey.
The interim superintendent said next year is going to be nerve-wracking.
“Our best hope because, as we say, we're conservative everything. Our best hope is that we discover more revenue, and then that will help reduce our deficit in our fund balances next year. That's the best thing we can hope for,” Bailey said.
Shannon Sullivan, a teacher at Hudson Senior High School and second vice president of the Hudson Teachers Association, recalled how the community came together in 2011 when the state cut over $1 billion dollars from K-12, and cut off thousands of education jobs statewide.
She said the community needs to come together again.
“Each of these people that I'm looking at that are just a budget line right now. They've had an impact on people and a personal conversation in a way that they've changed someone's lives,” Sullivan said.
She asked with over 30 positions being impacted, and millions of dollars in cuts, how the board decided who stays and who goes.
“My direct question would be to the business office and to the people in front of me looking at these numbers up here, why is there only one position cut to central?” Sullivan asked to loud applause, referring to the one proposed position cut to the central offices.
Nicki Genito, also a teacher at the Hudson Senior High School and union president of the aide’s unit, said the aides are the lowest paid workers and often don’t take insurance because they can’t afford it.
And she said these positions are vital.
“They're the first person here in the morning to deal with the children. They come here, and they're the first ones to see the children, and a lot of times they're the last ones to leave that deal with the children,” Genito said.
She said the proposed cuts would actually impact 21 teaching aide positions, not the advertised 15, because 6 unfilled positions would also be cut.
She also explained that raising taxes almost 6% would be too much for people in the community.
“You have people on fixed incomes, they can't afford that. They don't want to afford that. There's people that have the money, that don't have children in this district. They don't want to pay that. It's going to be a hard sell, a very hard sell. I wish it was an easy sell, but I don't believe it's going to be,” said Genito.
She said she would be happy to get her commercial driver’s license and drive students if it could save any jobs.
“I grew up on a farm. I can drive a van. I'll go get my CDL. There's many people that would go and do these things and save money instead of losing positions,” Genito said to applause.
The next Board of Education meeting is April 21st at 6pm at the Hudson High School Auditorium.
The budget vote and board member election is on May 19th, from 11 am to 8 pm, followed by a board meeting at 8pm at the Hudson High School Auditorium.
