Vote NO at Today’s Annual School Budget Vote
Hello Hudsonians!
For us to write an off-cycle newsletter, you know it must be important.
The 30-Second Take:
Vote NO on the Hudson City School District (HCSD) budget today. The proposal raises the tax levy 5.8%. In government there are, mostly, no perfect solutions, only trade-offs (Sowell). This one has broken: more money, fewer students, worse outcomes, a bill the Working Middle Class cannot carry. A NO is a referendum on whether Hudson continues the charade of self-deception, or starts the road to honesty and rebuilding. It is the right vote for taxpayers. It is the right vote for the kids.
📍 Vote here: Central Fire Station (next to Pocketbook Hotel), 77 North Seventh Street, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
The 3-Minute Take:
HCS believes in a nonpartisan Hudson. In special elections, we recommend on the merits. Today we recommend NO, for two reasons that point the same way: the taxpayer and the student.
1. Return on Investment / Education
HCSD spends roughly $42,000 per pupil. That is 2.5x the national average, and above the New York State average of roughly $36,000. Hudson students still sit in the bottom quartile. Departing superintendents walk off with six-figure exits. Every levy hike pushes a Hudson nurse, contractor, or shopkeeper an inch closer to the U-Haul.
Governance is the art of trade-offs (Sowell). This is no longer a trade-off. It is a one-way deal. Families who cannot afford to leave pay more every year into a school system that refuses to fix itself. Their money goes in. Nothing changes. That is not a public school. That is a tax on staying.
2. A NO Vote Helps the Kids
This is the part HCSD's defenders refuse to engage. The status quo is failing the children. Fewer students. More administrators. Higher per-pupil cost. Worse outcomes. Parents who can afford to opt out already do, into private, parochial, charter, neighboring districts, and homeschool pods. The kids who remain are the ones whose families cannot exit. A YES ratifies that arrangement. A NO interrupts it.
A NO does not close schools. It returns HCSD to the table with three questions it has spent years avoiding:
Why is enrollment collapsing?
Where is the money going?
What will actually improve outcomes?
Refusing to ask is not pro-child, it is pro-mediocrity.
A School That Unites and Educates
Hudson deserves a school where families from all walks of life come together, not a school that divides them by income, Ward, or town. Hudson deserves a school leadership that can look in the mirror honestly, not one that avoids numbers and ignores questions. A NO today is a referendum on which Hudson we want. The charade, or the road back to honesty. And quite frankly, a school that makes a $4-million spreadsheet error without a full reckoning and explanation, does not deserve to take that money from the pockets of Working Middle Class families.
The Board, and the Rigging
Based on their resumes and candidacy statements alone, Common Sense cannot endorse any of this year's Board candidates in good faith as being aware of the scale of the problem and what is required to fix it. Until stronger candidates stand, the budget is the only lever taxpayers hold. And the lever is weighted: HCSD has to lose twice, four weeks apart, for the budget to fail, and HCSD administers its own elections. Imagine a mayoral race where the incumbent picks the date, has to lose twice, and City Hall counts the ballots.
Read the Other Side. We Mean It.
We disagree with the YES camp. We still want you to read them. That is what a good school would teach. It is not what HCSD practices.
The YES argument we'd point you to is from All My Dead and Living Things (AMDLT), a Substack by a local parent and self-described "5th-generation" Hudsonian. The post is "Test Scores Are Not a Good Reason to Vote No." It is written down, offered in good faith, and not a Facebook comment or a crayon-style poster aimed at adults. We appreciate the effort, even as we disagree with the recommendation and the reasoning.
The real solution to Hudson's schools has two parts: fiscal discipline at the district, and student discipline in the classroom. The verboten topic, the one no one in the YES camp will touch, is the failure of local families to do their part. HCSD and its boosters ignore discipline and try to paint over a culture without it by breaking fiscal discipline.
Notice what the AMDLT post leaves out. A 2,500-word argument on a budget vote that never uses a "$" sign, or the words "million" or "dollar," is a weather report without the weather. Story-first towns stayed Hudson. Fact-first towns became Manhattan and Albany.
If you vote YES after reading both sides, we respect it, and we invite a Guest Op-Ed making the case. Common Sense publishes its detractors. That is how we stay honest.
The HCS Companion Pieces
Editorial: Hudson's School Budget Vote Has Been Captured — how the Hudson Teachers' Association (HTA) controls the money, the votes, and the calendar.
Special Report: Half the Kids. Twenty Times the Budget — Hudson parents pay a triple tax for youth programming, across HCSD, the City of Hudson Youth Center, and a dozen-plus afterschool programs, totaling roughly $45,000 per kid per year.
If you are short on time or prefer visual stories, head over to our Instagram.
The Road Ahead
The odds are stacked against a NO today. Even so, HCSD historically approves budgets at lower rates than peer districts. If NO wins, the budget returns for a revote in four weeks. If today is close, a mildly organized NO campaign next May could succeed. The clock, regional demographics, and national school choice trends, are not on the district side. Now is the time to get ahead… not be caught flat-footed again.
— The Editors, Hudson Common Sense.
For Hudsonians with reason.
PS: Curious about our framework for understanding Hudson, and what we stand for? Read more About Us on our Masthead here.