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Image remixed from The Economist
Hudson, NY: a sleepy industrial riverside town once famous for drugs, prostitution, and political corruption, turned magnet for artists and creatives, immigrants, boutique businesses, and the LGBTQ+ community, now faces an unexpected fiscal reckoning.
🚨 The city’s Treasurer warned last week that Hudson's annual deficit is projected to hit ~$2 million, roughly 10% of its total budget. Creative accounting of one-time grants and time-shifted revenue may lessen the blow... but the City is definitely in the red, no matter how you hold the abacus.
The City is now dangerously close to exhausting its "fund balance"... the city government's version of a savings account—or, more accurately, the leftover cash and assets after all the bills are paid at the end of a fiscal year. Think of it as the money the city didn’t blow through... yet.
The culprit?
A mayoral administration (Kamal) that overestimated revenues, underestimated expenses, and stumbled into the kind of budget missteps more typical of a high school mock government.
The budget gap is no longer a spreadsheet issue—it could threaten public services, employee wages, and the fragile social contract of a town fighting an uncivil war for its future.
As Hudson teeters on the brink, the questions mount: Who foots the bill for a small-city bankruptcy?
Will working-class residents bear the brunt?
And can the next mayor, who will inherit Kamal's deficit, restore fiscal sanity before the city falls off a cliff and into the river that once ignited its whaling economy?
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Last edited/updated:
August 4th, 2025
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