The evening of 2022-12-06 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE) for the purpose of having a Public Hearing on the upcoming Capital Project Vote.
The actual vote will be next week, December 13. Polling location is the Board of Education room (room 129), which is across the hall from the B-Gym. Nearest doors are off Church Street. Election time is 9AM and 9PM.
The presentation started off with a short video, before covering the project plans. Overall, it felt rather maintenancy to me. Alot of replace/repair/refurbish, I don’t think I heard any new. For that matter, I don’t think any of the items on the list were new either. I recall most of them being mentioned as desired in past Capitol Projects, but being deferred as the items in those projects were more important at the time.
There were a number of comments from the audience around the finances. I think they had valid concerns, as it is a ~$40 million dollar project. Including the ~$10 million in interest on the debt, which should highlight why debt is bad.
As a Capitol Project, the state will cover ~80% of the cost through aid. Yes, that does come from the taxpayers in the end. But if the work needs doing, would you rather foot ~20% locally or ~100%? Much like with buses during the annual budget vote, if we are going to have this education model, this method of doing the work makes financial sense. (Whether the model makes educational sense is a completely different topic, outside the scope of tonight’s observations).
Personally, I would prefer they roll this in with the regular budget vote in May. It doesn’t seem to rise to the level requiring a special election (and all that entails). Only benefit I can see is sooner started, sooner finished. But on the sort of timescale involved, that doesn’t seem worth it to me.
In any case, review the information provided, as you see fit. Then vote in a week.
(and a thank you to the district for producing this image reminder)
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the December 06, 2022 meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education.
Agenda’s and similar information can be found at HFL’s BoardDocs page. While a recording will likely be available soon.