Three people write the city budget
The City Charter gives the job to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the BEA. It has three members.1
Each department sends the BEA a written request for what it needs. The BEA reviews the requests department by department,4 estimates the city's other income, and puts the whole budget together.1 The meetings where this happens are the BEA sessions you'll see covered in the Weekly Digest.
Two months of work, then twenty days
The charter fixes the deadlines.1 This year's sessions →
The Council can cut. It can't add.
Once the budget reaches the Common Council, the Council's power runs in one direction. It "may reduce any items or amounts," but "may not increase such amounts."1 The mayor holds a public hearing first. Then one of three things happens:
The Council adopts it
The budget takes effect as adopted.
The Council cuts items
It can cut any line except debt payments and amounts set by law. The mayor can veto the cuts. Overriding the veto takes two-thirds of all Council members, within five days.1
The Council doesn't act
After 20 days the budget is "deemed to be finally adopted," exactly as the BEA wrote it.1
Property tax fills the gap
The charter's formula is simple: estimated spending, minus everything else that pays for it, is the amount to be raised from property tax.1 For the 2026 general fund:
38¢
of every general fund dollar in 2026 came from property tax. The rest came from sales tax, parking, lodging tax, permits, fees and other revenue, plus some of the city's savings.2
So every choice in the BEA sessions, a new hire or a cut, a higher parking estimate or a lower one, moves the levy. How the levy becomes your bill →
Water, sewer and the cemetery run as separate funds, with budgets of their own.2
Reference
How the 2026 figures were added up
The Treasurer's 2026 general ledger lists every line of the budget by fund.2 We added the adopted-budget column by fund: general fund spending $15,739,775; cemetery $547,760; water $1,633,588; sewer $1,718,400. The four add to $19,639,523, which matches the ledger's own "Expense Total." Property tax is the line "REAL PROPERTY TAXES," $5,972,844. Everything else is the difference, $9,766,931: $9,275,002 of revenue plus $491,929 of savings ($385,629 of fund balance and $106,300 from two reserves). The savings are what the budget plans to use; how much is actually used depends on how the year ends.
The 38¢ figure is $5,972,844 ÷ $15,739,775. It is our arithmetic, not a city figure.
The charter's rules, section by section
- §C16-1: the BEA is the Mayor, Treasurer and Council President, and meets between September 15 and November 1 to prepare the budget.
- §C16-2: departments submit written estimates by September 10.
- §C16-3: the budget goes to the Council by November 10. Consideration can't run past 20 days, and if the Council doesn't act, "the budget shall be deemed to be finally adopted." The mayor holds a public hearing first.
- §C16-4: the Council may reduce items, except amounts fixed by law and debt payments, but may not increase them, change their terms or add new items.
- §C16-5: the mayor may veto reductions; overriding takes two-thirds of all Council members, within five days.
- §C16-7: spending minus non-tax income is the tax budget, levied on taxable property.
Quoted from the charter as posted on eCode360.1
What we're still checking
- The exact date the Council took up the 2026 budget, and so when its 20 days ran out.
- Whether the public hearing on the 2026 budget was held, and when.
Sources
- City of Hudson Charter, Article XVI, Board of Estimate and Apportionment, §§C16-1 to C16-8. ecode360.com
- City of Hudson Treasurer, General Ledger, "Adopted Citywide Budget," Fiscal Year 2026, printed 1/28/2026. 25 pages; "REAL PROPERTY TAXES" on page 1, "Expense Total" on the final page. In the FUTURE HUDSON budget folder.
- How Hudson property tax works (companion page). claude.ai
- Carole Osterink, "Crafting the 2027 Budget," The Gossips of Rivertown (Sep 27, 2026). gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com
- Spenser Walsh, "Hudson moves forward with citywide property reassessment," Daily Gazette / HV360 (Jun 16, 2026), naming Council President Margaret Morris. dailygazette.com
- Spenser Walsh, Common Council rejects mayor's budget, Daily Gazette / HV360 (Nov 28, 2025). dailygazette.com
- Spenser Walsh, Mayor Ferris pay cut and 2027 budget, Daily Gazette / HV360 (Oct 2, 2026): last year's budget "passed without Common Council approval." dailygazette.com