The Kids First candidates campaigned on promises of fiscal responsibility and smart budgeting. Yet, their actions in office continue to reveal the opposite - a pattern of short-term fixes, depleted reserves, and avoidance of structural solutions that jeopardize the district’s financial future.
đź’¸ Pulling from Reserves to Balance the Budget
During the 2025-26 budget cycle, the Kids First majority approved the withdrawal of $275,000 from district reserves to plug operating shortfalls - a move they presented as a simple solution. In reality, this was not a solution at all, but a stopgap that leaves the next board with an even larger hole to fill.
Back in March, this blog warned that pulling $275,000 from reserves would only delay the inevitable - and now the results are clear. The very scenario predicted then has arrived: rising health-care costs, depleted reserves, and no sustainable plan to fill the growing budget gap. What was framed as a temporary fix has become the district’s defining financial failure.
During the October 14 meeting, Tony Alfano conceded that the district faces a $560,000 spike in insurance costs, while the tax levy can only rise by about $200,000 under state limits. Yet even as he voiced concern, he ignored the reality that other mandatory increases - salaries, transportation, and services - will push the deficit even higher.
His comments revealed a troubling misunderstanding of how school finance actually works: the tax levy cap doesn’t cover new obligations, and using one-time fixes only deepens the hole. It’s a level of fiscal shortsightedness that underscores just how unprepared the board, led by a Kids First majority, is to manage real budget pressures.
This is the definition of kicking the can down the road. Rather than addressing cost structures, the Kids First leadership relied on one-time savings, leaving future taxpayers - and students - to deal with the fallout.
This shortfall traces back to last year, when Carey and Alfano forced the tax levy below its normal growth, then voted no on the reduced budget. They didn’t call it a 0% increase, but the result was the same: a politically driven cut that weakened the district’s financial footing.
đź©ş The Looming Insurance Crisis
The district’s health-insurance premiums have ballooned, and Alfano’s remarks offered no indication of a concrete plan. He stated they would “work with their insurance broker” and “look into possible state funding” to offset the costs, but there was no clear strategy or timeline presented during the meeting.
The issue is compounded by the absence of reserves that could have been used as a buffer. Instead, those funds were spent to cover prior shortfalls. Now, the district must navigate both rising contractual obligations and increased insurance premiums without financial flexibility.
In other words: they spent the savings before the storm hit.
Responsible leadership means making hard choices - cutting spending or having honest conversations about revenue - not raiding savings accounts to avoid them. Instead of demonstrating fiscal discipline, the Kids First majority chose the easiest short-term option, one that guaranteed bigger problems for the next board.
📉 The Real Numbers for Next Year
The financial reality facing Hardyston next year is far more severe than the board’s public discussion suggests. The district isn’t dealing with a single shortfall - it’s facing a compounded structural deficit:
- $275,000 in existing operating expenses that were covered with one-time reserve funds
- $560,000 in rising health-insurance costs that have no sustainable funding source
- $200,000 (or more) in contractually obligated salary and service increases
Together, these pressures create a budget gap of roughly $1 million dollars - and that’s before accounting for inflation, transportation increases, or unexpected maintenance needs.
By emptying reserves and avoiding structural adjustments, the current board has left the district boxed in. Even if revenues stay flat, the next budget cycle will begin nearly a million dollars in the red, forcing the next board to choose between cutting programs, raising taxes, or both.
🏫 Missed Opportunities for Regional Efficiency
The insurance issue isn’t the only example of short-sighted financial management. At the same meeting, the board briefly discussed the long-awaited regionalization study - a state-funded analysis exploring whether merging Hardyston with Franklin, Hamburg, Ogdensburg, and Wallkill Valley could yield cost savings.
Board Member Tony Alfano cited an estimated $1.3 million in potential savings - but then immediately acknowledged that he had not actually read the full report, only its summary. That raises an obvious question: if he hadn’t read the study, where did that number come from?
This casual reference, made before verifying the document’s contents, reflects the same pattern seen in other financial decisions - react first, read later. A responsible board would have taken time to understand the findings before drawing conclusions or using the figure publicly.
But even beyond the lack of preparation, there’s a deeper issue: Kids First may not have even built relationships with leaders in neighboring districts - the very people they’d need to collaborate with if regionalization or shared services were ever to succeed. Regional partnerships require trust, coordination, and professional dialogue across communities. When a board is more focused on politics than relationships, those bridges simply don’t exist.
While the study remains in its early stages, it underscores what responsible leaders should be doing: identifying sustainable, multi-district cost efficiencies based on facts and cooperation, not assumptions and isolation. Instead, the Kids First majority seems content to focus on optics - digital signs, slogans, and short-term patches - while ignoring opportunities to build long-term fiscal stability.
⚠️ The Consequences of Short-Sighted Leadership
Fiscal responsibility isn’t about rhetoric - it’s about planning for what comes next. The Kids First team’s financial decisions have left Hardyston with:
- Shrinking reserves
- Soaring insurance costs
- No long-term cost-containment strategy
- No working relationships with neighboring districts
- And a looming budget gap for the incoming board
These choices will force the next board to make painful decisions - either cut programs or raise taxes - all because the current majority chose expedience over prudence.
True fiscal responsibility isn’t about slogans or short-term popularity. It’s about honesty, foresight, and the courage to make decisions that protect the district’s future - even when they’re not politically easy.
Hardyston residents deserve better. It’s time to demand leadership that thinks beyond the next election cycle.
At a Glance: Hardyston’s Fiscal Warning Signs
- $275,000 pulled from reserves to balance the budget
- $560,000 in added insurance costs
- $200,000+ in contractually obligated increases
- $1.3 million “savings” cited before reading report
- No new cross-district relationships to support shared services
Source: October 14, 2025 Hardyston Board of Education Meeting Transcript